He said I'd be a stranger in Kilcorney now and none there I might know <br />For I left that place in forty eight more than fifty years ago <br />And I was only twenty then the years have made me slow <br />And I show the wear and tear of time my hair as white as snow. <br /> <br />In November in Kilcorney when jack frost was about <br />At night we lamped the river and we speared salmon and trout <br />The fish had swum upstream to spawn in river swelled by rain <br />My boyhood years were happy years the memories remain. <br /> <br />The good memories we can recall and I remember still <br />When as a six year old with dad I climbed up Mushera hill <br />The lark above the bracken his song of May did sing <br />And Aubane looked green and beautiful on that bright day in Spring. <br /> <br />A stranger in Kilcorney is what I well might be <br />For I doubt that any one back there would even know of me <br />I left there fifty four years ago and in the lifetime of a man <br />More than half a century in time is quite a lengthy span. <br /> <br />When I was only twenty years I hit the wandering track <br />And the ship took me from Ireland and since I've not been back <br />To Kilcorney in Duhallow thousands of miles away <br />And I well might be a stranger in the old home place today<br /><br />Francis Duggan<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-stranger-in-kilcorney/
