The hay still lay in the fields the day he went away,

A wretched season after a long hard winter,

Heart could not stand it,

After nearly seventy Septembers,

Ventricles dilated and for a minute ceased

Their pumping.

He must go into a hospital at once

And rest,

Who had never known any life but hard unyielding toil,

A continual battle with the stubborn soil

Among the Antrim hills.

He lay flat on his back as they drove

Carefully towards the city

Which he had never loved.

They were taking him away from his work,

His farm, his familiar fields,

His people,

To some strange and unaccepted place.

He was afraid,

And that also was a new experience.

It was like the first day he went to school

In a new pair of boots that hurt his feet.

He had turned back to see his mother at the door

And he had waved at her.

He had not seen her now for twenty years,

May God have mercy upon her soul,

She too had died

Outside the hospital gate

Her great grey eyes filled with unaccustomed tears.

July 1963