In three decades of years many minutes of time <br />And back in the late seventies I was past my prime <br />Back there in the place of the gray hooded crow <br />Where the river Finnow to the Blackwater flow. <br /> <br />The passing of the Seasons have left me looking gray <br />And plainly I have seen a far better day <br />And clearly my better days in life are gone <br />But only the lust for life keeps me keeping on. <br /> <br />It has been awhile since I heard the robin sing <br />And seen in the old fields the wild-flowers of Spring <br />And heard the dipper where the stream meets the rill <br />And hear the lark carolling above the hill. <br /> <br />The past may be gone but one can visualize <br />The song of the chaffinch in Spring at sunrise <br />In the sunlit meadow the sweet scent of hay <br />Far north by the mountains from here far away. <br /> <br />The past may be gone but the memories remain <br />And I hear the birds sing in the wind and the rain <br />In April when the shy and wild cock pheasant crow <br />In the field by the river where the rank rushes grow.<br /><br />Francis Duggan<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-past-may-be-gone/
