So Long I'Ve Been Out Of Duhallow Poem by Francis Duggan

So long I've been out of Duhallow I'd feel a stranger there today
Where Araglen through the fields of Cullen to the Blackwater babbles it's way
In this far Southern Land I grow older the years have left me looking gray
And without me the white blossoms will bloom on the hawthron trees of the May
The Finnow through the fields of Millstreet on towards the Blackwater does flow
I farewelled the old fields by the river when Clara wore his hat of snow
Those old fields where I got to know Nature and that often inspired me to rhyme
When I was much younger and fitter and stronger with a full head of hair in my prime
The dipper he sang in the old stream his familiar song at sunrise
I'm walking again in old familiar places each time that I do visualize
And I picture myself back in the old Town and some familiar faces I see
But to many of them I'm a stranger and just a few remember me
Yet so long I've been out of Duhallow and for the past I've shed all of my tears
And though I still recall Claraghatlea North I've not been there for twenty years.