The Former Rose Of Duhallow

Does she like most others in hair dyes cloak her gray
The former Rose of Duhallow where might she be today?
Back in the mid nineteen fifties as i do recall
In green old Duhallow she was the fairest of all

Duhallow's unmarried young women of her time
Then nineteen or twenty approaching her prime
But in old Duhallow one destined not to stay
The wanderlust in her for lands far away

From the lush fertile fields where the Blackwater flow
The home to the badger and the silver back crow
She left when the hawthorns wore their white blooms of the May
And on shed rafters the sparrows built their nests of feathers and hay.

With shoulder length wavy brown hair and eyes blue as ripened sloe
The former Rose of Duhallow six decades ago
She seemed down to earth free of conceit or guile
And i still remember her beautiful smile

The past may be gone but the memories with me remain
Of the former Rose of Duhallow and i see her again
Walking on the roadway her hair blowing in the breeze
On a nice day in Summer close to twenty degrees.