Sir Dominick's Bargain

VII

A fair and a feast for a new squire

The young master of Dunoran

There was dancing and fiddling

A welcome for all to come see

This grand estate at its finest

We had wine for the gentlemen and ladies

Beer and cider enough to float a ship on

All the farmhands and the stableboys

All the maids and the servant girls

All the pipers in the county came to

Raise a cheer for our Sir Dominick

Feast for a week and then feast for a month

Feast till the weather breaks and work returns

'Till none but the master was left feasting

And dancing and drinking and dicing

A sinful darkness upon him, they said,

A bold compulsion to drain a fortune

As though it were a barrel. A fever

That raged and barked, that burned all it touched

'till everything was gone and nothing was left

And the house we feasted in stood empty

And disgraced and quiet and alone

The master of Dunoran

The last of the Sarsfields

Shame of an old family

Gone to travel abroad

Gone to flee the money lenders

While debts still grow and this sad

Old house rots in the woods

Gone for a year, gone for three

Waiting for an east wind

To blow home through the mountains

A cold and lonesome sound

So hopeless and afraid

"It is all over with me," it says

"It is all past praying for now."