When last I heard the dunnock sing along the ditch of the bohreen <br />The snowdrops and the bluebells in clusters to be seen <br />And the hawthorn trees looked lovely in their white flowers of the May <br />But that was many years ago and many miles away. <br /> <br />The fields were full of wildflowers and everywhere looked lush and green <br />And the grass flattened by the waterway to tell where the floods had been <br />And though down the old bohreen I may never walk again <br />Of such a pleasant evening the memories remain. <br /> <br />When last I heard the dunnock sing in the leafy hedgerow <br />In the rushes of the headland the male pheasant did cuck and crow <br />And the dark brown white breasted dipper was singing in the rill <br />That babbled towards the river down the high field by the hill. <br /> <br />The little plain brown dunnock a bird I used to know <br />I heard him sing for the last time some twenty years ago <br />And perhaps in the hedgerow by the bohreen his descendant sings today <br />When Spring is in the old fields in a Country far away.<br /><br />Francis Duggan<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/when-last-i-heard-the-dunnock-sing/
