Without Me Life Goes On Poem by Francis Duggan

Without me life goes on west of Millstreet Town
Where i used to live when my hair was dark brown
I left there two years and three decades ago
And since time that rusts iron has become my foe

Claraghatlea where i first looked on the lamp of day
From where i now live indistance far away
Illowa of the Moyne Shire of song, story and rhyme
Once home to the people of the Dreaming Time

I often does think of my first home in Millstreet
And the old rushy fields where the waterways meet
Where i grew to love Nature when i was a boy
And learning of her ways today i enjoy

Since i last lived in Millstreet the babies back then
Now in their early thirties aging women and men
Today there few would recognize me and few of me would know
Time on me is showing and has left me walking slow

In the Claraghatlea fields the clear flowing rill
Babbles towards the river with a tongue that is never still
Buttoday i would be a stranger to many west of Millstreet Town
Where i used to live when my hair was dark brown.