A Stranger To Many Poem by Francis Duggan

A stranger to many now in Claraghatlea Townland and a stranger to many in old Millstreet Town
And a stranger now to the old fields where Finnow it winds it's way down
To join the great Blackwater river through places from here far away
I visualize things as they once were though few things as they were the same do stay
And yet landscapes they never do change much the old fields they do stay the same
And many of them i remember they even had their own given name
But the people are like Nature's Seasons the people they come and they go
And the changes keep happening in Millstreet not many there now i would know
A stranger now in the Town of Millstreet where mine it was once a known face
And i hear that the changes are happening and many new faces in the old homeplace
My old mentors gone to the reaper they had their innings one might say
Tis been twenty years since i left Duhallow though in retrospect that seems like yesterday
And still the chaffinch he chirps on the hedgerow and the dipper he sings in the rill
That babbles on down through the old fields from it's source at the foot of the hill.