‘Tis springtime now in Ireland.
O how I wish I were
Where cuckoos give you greeting
By sociably repeating
The name they proudly bear.

I’m lonely far from Ireland
So clean and green and grand
And the neighbourly “God save you”
Which kind folk often gave you
Within that friendly land.

I’ve been so long from Ireland
I fear when I return
I’ll seek in vain the faces
Of old friends in old places
The friends for whom I yearn.

I fear I’ll be forgotten
And I fear there will be few
Old voices to remind me
Of youth so far behind me
Excepting the cuckoo.

MICHAEL MULLIN, ‘THE BARD OF FOREMASS,
Foremass Lower, Sixmilecross. Co. Tyrone.
May 3^rd 1960