I Came From The Brown Bogland Poem by Francis Duggan

I came from the brown bogland and the bog in me remain
And in my flights of fancy I can see the snipe again
Probing with his long bill for worms and such in the soft mud by the drain
And the blackbird on the hedgerow is singing his song of rain.

I came from the brown bogland where the curlew in the May
Above his marshy breeding ground his flute like music play
And in the rushy meadow in the long grass by the hedgerow
The wild and shy cock pheasant can be heard cuck and crow.

'Twas by the old brown bogland I first saw light of day
And from the fields and woodlands of my youth I now live far away,
The years that weary everyone have left me looking gray
Yet the man may leave the bogland but the bogland in him stay.

I came from the brown bogland far north of here as the crow fly
Where the shlaun men in the Summer shlauned the dark and brown peat out for the sun to dry
For fire fuel to keep their homes warm when Winter winds blew chill
Across the old brown bogland down from the northern hill.