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, hey

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 the singin'

As the ship moves sadly from the pier

Oh, poacher's daughter, Sunday best

Two hundred brave souls share the farewell tear

Well, there's a house on the hillside

Where the drifting sands are born

Went down and let the slow tide wash me

Back to the lands where I came from

Where the mountain men are kings

And the sound of the piper counts for everything

I did my tour, did my duty

I did all they asked of me, yeah

Died in the trenches and at Alamein

Died in the Falklands on TV

Goin' 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

And 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 lands 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 that 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