Four Schoolboys And A Dog

The countryside around wore Summer colours The haycocks in mown meadows standing white And the pasture fields surrounded by green hedgerows Resplendent in the afternoon sunlight. Four School going boys climbed the slopes of Clara mountain Donal Hickey, Jerry and John Mahony and I And Donal had his terrier 'Bonzo' with him On that sunday long ago in mid July. Four Primary Schoolgoing boys on Clara mountain The countryside was beautiful to view We picked and eat the whortleberries from the heather The whortleberries small and ripe and blue. The whortleberries ripe fruits of the heather In July when ripe so beautiful to eat You find them on the Cork and Kery mountains Towards east Kerry from Macroom and Millstreet. Old Bonzo trailed a fox up through the bracken The ageing dog had known a better day He puffed uphill the fox had long since bolted Perhaps by then a half a mile away. Twenty minutes later Bonzo came back exhausted He panted heavy he was out of puff He lay by his master Donal on the bracken And stretched himself as if to say enough. That day we climbed to wooden cross on top of Clara That overlooked the streets of Millstreet Town The uphill crawl on energy demanding Though it was quite an easy journey down. Our shirt sleeves soiled from the juices of whortleberries Of Nature's fruits that day we'd ate our fill And that night I climbed into my bed exhausted From day of climbing on the bracken hill. Jerry Mahony and Donal Hickey still in Millstreet And John Mahony lives in England I've been told And the boys back then long years beyond their prime day And by the younger generation seen as old. And poor old Bonzo he died on the roadway I heard he was run over by a car And I am living far away from Millstreet From the fields by Clara mountain I live far. Four Schoolboys and a dog on Clara mountain And the singing lark towards heaven's gate did fly And the ripened whortleberries tasted juicy On that sunday long ago in mid July. The countrysiode around in summer colours And the haycocks in mown meadows standing white And the pasture fields surrounded by green hedgerows Resplendent in the afternoon sunlight.