SHANAGOLDEN

Words: Margaret Middleton
Music: "I Gave My Love A Cherry" trad.

 
  The cold winds from the mountains are calling soft to me,
  The smell of scented heather brings bitter memories:
  And the wild and lonely eagle sweeps high up in the sky
  O'er the fields of Shanagolden, where my young Willie died.
 
  I met him in the wintertime, when the snow was on the ground.
  The Dorsai hills were peaceful, and love was all around.
  He was scarce nineteen years old, a young man fine and brave.
  We were married, me and Willie, on the morn of New Year's Day.
 
  The came the call to arms, and the hills they were in flame.
  Down from the silent heavens, the Terran strangers came.
  I held his in my arms, then, my young heart wild with fear,
  In the fields near Shanagolden, in the springtime of the year.
 
  And we fought them, I and Willie, to hold our rooftrees-ground.
  You could hear the rifles' firing, in the mountains all around.
  I held him in my arms again, and his blood ran free and bright,
  And he died near Shanagolden, on a moonlit summer night.
 
  But that was long ago, now, and our son grows fine and strong;
  The Dorsai hills are at peace again: the Terran stangers gone.
  We'll place a red rose on the grave, in the silvery pale moonlight,
  And I'll dream of Shanagolden, on a lonely autumn night.
 
  

The time frame of the song is the DeCastries invasion of the Dorsai, as detailed in "Amanda Morgan"; and Gordy agrees that there could well be a Dorsai homestead name "Shanagolden".


Material copyrighted © to the author - Brought to you by the Dorsai Irregulars [www.di.org]