He stood beside me at Barneys Bush,
To the western sky he turned his face,
And he seemed to recall on that solstice eve,
The long gone members of his race.
Telling how a generation back that he,
With his father stood on that self –same ground,
And watched on the years very shortest day,
As the sun in Mc Cormacks Gap went down.
 
The tales that he told were handed down,
Of famine and fenians and feuds of yore,
Napoleon and Wellington both had their days,
Disraeli and Gladstone and many more.
An uncrowned king whom his love affair,
Ensured that no kingdom he ever would found,
And I heard of a poet in Reading goal,
As the sun in Mc Cormacks Gap went down.
 
Forty years to the day and I’m back again,
Alas the bells for him have rung,
And he sleeps out there’neath that western sky,
And that setting sun like a beacon hung!
And Thought of the many friends that we knew,
Now near him in Mc Keowns green field, each mound,
Such small space they need in this world now,
As the sun in Mc Cormacks Gap goes down.
 
Those four decades what a change they’ve made,
On those who withstood the ravages of time,
And only once and not for long,
Is it given to man to be in his prime.
I was youthful then but I’m ageing now,
And so very much of my springs unwound
And I sigh as I stand at Barneys Bush,
As the sun in Mc Cormacks Gap goes down.