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 slip 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, Sundat 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
everything.

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.