Harder Than Steel

Have you heard the red hawk's cry In the morning high on Roan Mountain When the sun comes up over Carolina hills The wind sweeps softly through the pines Have you seen the blue smoke rise From the chimney down in the valley Where the big water wheel Turns the iron ore to steel Harder than a heart that's made of stone The trail Winds up Past the rocks and the boughs of the Roan And it's leading me back to the old home 'neath the pines Why did I decide to roam I had shared the stream with the wounded I washed my eyes that were blind from the gun smoke And when the fighting was all done And we knew that we had won We laid our brothers in the ground Every spring I return to Roan Mountain Just to search for the heart that was lost there And I look for the stones That mark long forgotten bones Harder than the steel that cut them down The trail Winds up Past the rocks and the boughs of the Roan And it's leading me back to the old home 'neath the pines Why did I decide to roam Have you heard the red hawk's cry In the morning high on Roan Mountain When the sun comes up over Carolina hills Why did I decide to roam