The Voices Come To Me

The voices come to me from long ago Of Nature's children that i used to know I hear them sing on hedge and tree and bush The robin and the blackbird and the thrush. From April on the fields are lush and green And wildflowers in their billions to be seen And lambs bleat in the fields beside the hill And the dipper he is singing in the rill. The redwings have gone home to far away And the hawthorns cloaked in their white flowers of May And chaffinch pipes his happy notes to Spring And swallows o'er the meadows fly and sing. The curlew o'er the bogland flies around And he flutes his finest o'er his breeding ground He and his mate in the bog raise their family And then fly off to their home by the sea. At times far off and at other times quite near The cuckoo's voice sweet music to the ear Her egg in nest of smaller bird she lay The only part in motherhood she play. And at late evening when darkness cloaks the sky The shy male snipe above the bogland fly And with his wings and tail he makes a goat like sound As through the night he flies around and round. The voices come to me from long ago Of Nature's children that i used to know When Spring arrived and she shook her emerald gown And she spread her green in the fields near Millstreet Town.