Childhood’s Memories

Childhood’s Memories

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GEMS of thought infuse my vision—dreams of love with none comparing—

In the retrospective glimmers rising up before my gaze:

Peaceful hours in childhood’s summer, hope and gladness proudly bearing

Whisper back to me in memories all their innocence and praise.

By the fireside in the cottage once again I see the faces

Of those loved ones whom I cherished in that dear old happy home;

And my heart becomes enraptured from the force of all the graces

That my recollection numbers as their echoes sweetly come.

Smiling days, I greet thy shadows as I ponder on they pleasures,

And behold my kindly mother guiding with the hand of care;

Close beside her I am ever as her clam instructive measures,

Fill my soul with love and prudence, and our joys and sorrows share.

With my father I am plodding as he ploughs in cheerful motion,

And I trip across the furrows on the newly-turned clay;

Chasing after swooping seagulls that have journeyed from the ocean,

Or the primroses I gather from the hedges by the way.

Round the fairy fort I wander, and recall its stories charms;

With my sisters and my brothers I am sporting on the green;

And I hear the cock at midnight in his lonesome loud alarms;

Lambs are frisking on the pasture, and I watch that joyful scene

With my comrades, at the river, near the lilies, I am fishing;

At the speckled trout I’ve landed I proudly gazing now,

For to catch the merry songsters in the bushes I am wishing;

In the boat that plies the ferry I am splashing at the bow.

In the schoolhouse I am reading on my turn for the teacher;

And in haste I’m flitting homeward on that bye-way path I see;

Rapt in modest admiration in the church I hear the preacher,

And my heart is now embracing all those moments dear to me.

Summer gleams and autumns glimpses trace the outlines of a story,

And those winter pastimes, peeping, fling their spells before my view.

Farewell parents, fond and faithful, resting now in peace and glory,

And to childhood’s scenes of pleasure, love and innocence—adieu!

                                                                                John Ginty

                                         Kilmore, Ballina, 10th March, 1914.