Mountain Men

The poacher and his daughter

throw soft shadows on the water in the night.

A thin moon slips behind them

as they pull the net with no betraying light.

And later on the coast road, I meet them

and the old man winks a smile.

And who am I to fast deny the right

to take a fish once in a while?

I walk with them, they wish me luck

when I ship out on the Sunday from the kyle.

And from the church I hear them singing

as the ship moves sadly from the pier.

Oh, poacher's daughter, Sunday best,

two hundred brave souls share the farewell tear.

There's a house on the hillside, where the drifting sands are born.

Lay down and let the slow tide wash me

back to the land where I came from.

Where the mountain men are kings

and the sound of the piper counts for everything.

Did my tour, did my duty. I did all they asked of me.

Died in the trenches and at Alamein

...died in the Falklands on T.V.

Going back to the mountain kings

where the sound of the piper counts for everything.

Long generations from the Isles

sent to tread the foreign miles

where the spiral ages meet.

Felt naked dust beneath their feet.

Future sun called winds to blow

and the past and present hard-eyed crow

flew hunting high and circling low over blackened plains of Eden.

There's a child and a woman praying for an end to the mystery.

Hoping for a word in a letter

fair wind-blown from across the sea

to where the mountain men are kings

and the sound of the piper counts for eveything.

There's a house on the hillside, where the drifting sands are born.

Lay down and let the slow tide wash me

back to the land where I came from.

Where the mountain men are kings

and the sound of the piper counts for everything.

Where the real mountain men are kings

and the sound of the piper counts for everything.

Feel the naked dust beneath my toes

while the future sun calls winds to blow

and the past and present black-eyed crow

flies hunting high and circling low

between dream mountains of our Eden.