I Never Thought

I never thought i would be so long away
From the place where i first looked  on the  lamp of day
Claraghatlea a mile by road west of Millstreet Town
Where i used to live when my hair was dark brown

Though mental images of them with me does stay
Many people i knew there where the deceased are now lay
The babes when i left there now in their life's prime
There are many days in twenty six years of time

Where many did  see me as one of their own
By the young generation today there i would not be known
A stranger in where i lived in my better years
Yet for what was i've shed my last nostalgic tears

Where river Finnow to the Blackwater flow
In the fields where the rushes in clusters do grow
In late March the first flowers of Spring in numbers to be seen
And the bare trees are budding their new leaves of green

The great gift of memmory is a maarvellous thing
In fancy i often hear the dipper sing
The dark brown water bird with breast as white as snow
Does sing in the stream his kind i used to know

I may never walk in the  old fields again
And only the memories with me now remain
Of people i knew in Seasons long gone
But the now is what matters and life does go on.