The Past Returns To Me In My Dreams Poem by Francis Duggan

In my dreams the past keeps coming back to me
The old Town by the hill again I see
And the roads I travel winding up and down
That takes me to the streets of Millstreet Town.

And I feel so happy when my old friends say
Oh welcome back you've been so long away
The warm greetings handshakes all around
And the wanderer is back on his home ground.

I stand on bank by where Finnow waters flow
Songbirds are singing on the green hedgerow
The chaffinch, dunnock and robin their songs I know
Their ancestors I heard sing years ago.

The small high fields look green by Clara hill
And the dipper's voice re-echo in the rill
That ever journey on it's downland way
From Claramore through fields of Claraghatlea.

And upwards ever upwards as he wing
O'er Coolikerane bog a skylark sing
'Til he is just a small speck in the sky
And fainter, fainter grows his notes of joy.

Who could mistake the loud song of tiny wren
And in river at Annagloor the dark moorhen
Warn her young chicks who hide away in fear
That danger to them could be somewhere near.

In heavy cover where the rank rushes grow
The shy cock pheasant in the mid morning crow
His mate nearby sits quietly on her nest
A clutch of olive eggs beneath her breast.

My past return to me in my dreams
The mountains and the meadows and the streams
And the roads I travel winding up and down
That takes me to the streets of Millstreet Town.