It Has Been

It has been eighty Seasons and of years a score
Since I last walked on the roadway from Millstreet towards Rathmore
The water bank high gurgled in the road side drain
And an overcast sky promised more heavy rain.

It has been twenty years since I've heard the old rill
Go babbling down the high field by the hill
The rill that forever to the river flow
The wonders of Nature on me ever grow.

'Tis been years since I've seen and heard the redbreast sing
On a leafy birch tree on an evening in Spring
How quickly the years in time have ticked away
And I am growing older and grayer each day.

It has been many years since I've seen the swallows fly
In Summer above the lush fields of July
Or heard the wild honey bees buzzing around
Their hive in a hole in a tree six metres above ground.

It's been years since I've seen and heard tiny brown wren
Sing his big bird song on a bush in the glen
In that old green valley from here far away
When the hawthorns were wearing their white blooms of May.