I Did Not Return

In the quiet of a Spring evening in a field by the River Finnow In fancy i can hear the soft lowing of a cow When the nesting birds sing in the greenness of May In the place where i was raised in from here far away The birds are on song as the sun is going down In that beautiful countryside by Millstreet Town Where i grew to love Nature when i was a boy And learning of her ways today i enjoy When i left old Clara wore a hat of snow And Finnow in the old fields bank high did flow And the migratory redwings were chirping on the bare deciduous trees On weather temperatures just below zero degrees I hoped to be back like the swallows in Spring When the birds in the leafy groves of Millstreet do sing But i did not make it back to see the hawthorns in their blooms white as snow In the rushy fields when the male pheasant crow No i did not return when the fields wear their flowers And are looking lush and green after the mild Spring showers And the cattle on nutritious young grass gaining weight by the day But one ought to live in the now as the wise one does say.