That he was his country's greatest poet so many would agree <br />And he lived during the famine years and he knew great poverty <br />And he died in eighteen forty nine just forty six years old <br />Of malnutrition and consumption or so we have been told. <br /> <br />In his life time his poems were never published outside of Ireland's shore <br />But the legacy of Mangan will live forever more <br />He was much more than a fellow born with the gift of rhyme <br />And his marvellous poems have survived the ravages of time. <br /> <br />The great James Clarence Mangan in his time not seen as great <br />He was just a homeless pauper one who did not have a mate <br />One who could speak many languages yet he was a self taught man <br />And he knew little fame or success in his brief too brief life span. <br /> <br />Those who knew James Clarence Mangan told of one withdrawn and shy <br />And he never did look healthy never even as a boy <br />Born in the slums of Dublin and his parents were quite poor <br />And he never knew what it was like to be financially secure. <br /> <br />His poems the generations that followed him to greatness did inspire <br />Dark Rosaleen, The Woman Of Three Cows and O Hussey's Ode To The Maguire <br />And a Vision Of Connacht In The Thirteenth Century with the finest poems can compare <br />There are few to equal Mangan and poets like him were always rare. <br /> <br />He was addicted to opium and he lived such a hard life <br />And he never fathered children and he never had a wife <br />But in Ireland he's remembered as an all time literary great <br />And the poor in one like Mangan have a name to celebrate.<br /><br />Francis Duggan<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/james-clarence-mangan/
