The chaffinches are singing now in the groves of Lisheen
And the fields of Gneeveguilla have never looked so green
And wildflowers bloom by the narrow road that leads to Knocknagree
And blackbird builds her mossy nest on the fork of hawthorn tree.
In the fields of Gneeveguilla I heard the old man say
With my dad sixty years ago we tossed the new mown hay
We turned it with our two pronged pikes for the sun and wind to dry
When the sun was brightly shining in the Summer in July
But the wanderlust was in me and I yearned for far away
From the fields of Gneeveguilla where I tossed the new mown hay
And beyond old Gneeveguilla there were places to be seen
And the wander bug is restless in a fellow of eighteen.
In the fields of Gneeveguilla I remember in the Spring
The plain brown meadow pipit had his happy song to sing
And the swallows had returned home from warm Lands beyond the sea
To the place where they were born in for to raise their family.
Far from the meadows of his boyhood where he tossed the new mown hay
In this Land of gum and wattle he's grown old and tired and gray
And in that graveyard by the ocean his remains destined to lay
From Sliabh Luachra in east Kerry more than half a World away.
Francis Duggan
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/in-the-fields-of-gneeveguilla/
