I Have Not Been Back

I have not been back to old Ireland for years But for it i have shed my last nostalgic tears And no tears left for Clara that ever looks down On the evergreen countryside by Millstreet Town Some three decades of years far south of Hibernia's shore And in distance far from the high fields of Claramore And far from Claraghatlea where i was born and grew into a man I realize that i well may live out my life span In the flat countryside where the rushes in clusters do grow No tears for Duhallow where the Blackwater flow And though on my flights of fancy familiar places and faces i see I only have the memories of the what used to be. Perhaps i will never again see the old Paps of Shrone or Caherbarnagh or Gortavehy in it's face of stone And my friends of the past i may not now recognize Absence and time can make people strangers i have come to realize Some of the children of the nineteen fifties in eternal rest lay And the living are aging and showing their years in wrinkles and gray clearly too i have known a far better day And the clock on my life keeps on ticking away.