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Poetry - Loughanure
Loughanure
by Bernard Joseph Byrne
© 1988
I hear a sad voice calling over the mountains,
It’s calling me back to my old home again,
‘Come back to the wildwood, the place of your childhood,
And ramble again in the ivy clad glen.
Come stroll once again in the flower-strewn meadows,
Where you romped as a laddy in days long ago,
Come, rest in the shade on the Island Of The Yew Trees,
And watch the waves dashing on the hard rocks below.
It was often I sauntered with the morning sun shining,
Where free roamed the otter, the badger and boar,
Or snared the brown rabbit when the sun was declining,
And the night dew was falling on distant Ardmore,
By Loughanure’s border I watched the night falling,
As the brown thrush a soaring bade farewell to the day,
And over the landscape the darkness came crawling,
And the moon rose o’er Ardveen away far away.
But then came the morning when I had to leave it,
From homeland and people I had to depart,
When I saw the white wavelets retreating and breaking,
Sure a deluge of sorrow surged up in my heart.
Next day saw me sailing away o’er the billows,
As the smoke from the lime-kilns crept over the moor,
As if for to guide back the heart-broken rover
To the hearth of his parents in old Loughanure.
Oh Dark Loughanure, my blessings be with you,
May the sun ever shine on your stony green plains
May peace and renown haunt you now and forever,
And the angel of Fortune trespass your domains;
And I charge you forever you brown-crested plover;
Disturb not the dreams of Cuishle-Mochree,
Who down by the shoreland so peaceful is sleeping;
Always in vain waiting sadly for me.
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