Old James often talks of his old English hill <br />And he fancies he hears the babble of the rill <br />That flows to the river that to the sea flow <br />By grove and by wood and many a hedgerow. <br /> <br />Sixty years in Australia yet his accent remain <br />One piece of old England that he did retain <br />The England he knew is a changed Land today <br />And his boyhood friends with the departed lay. <br /> <br />For one in his early eighties he looks rather well <br />But the years on him now are beginning to tell <br />He does enjoy life and death he does not fear <br />And he goes to the Local and he enjoys his beer. <br /> <br />The green shores of England he may never more see <br />Time it does not wait for him like it does not wait for me <br />Yet he does not find it hard to visualize <br />And in fancy he can hear the lark at sunrise <br /> <br />Carol above the mountain from here far away <br />Fond memories of home with him destined to stay <br />Until the grim reaper will pay him the call <br />The reaper who will claim the life from us all.<br /><br />Francis Duggan<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/old-james/
