THE KINGDOM THAT WAS LOST

They come out every twilight
Beyond the castle walls
The ghosts that search the highlands
For the kingdom that was lost

I've seen their muddy footprints
Out by horse head's bog
Oak trees choked with spider's thread
Laid waste by knopper galls

This used to be the highlands
Back before the fall
We were cursed into the lowlands
To live inside the fog

The cobwebs on the doors grow thick
The hawthorn have all galled
The rust, it sticks
The wind, it whips
The castle doors are barred

You can see our kingdom glowing
Out past hag's head cliff
When the evening sun begins to set
And the west wind starts to shift

These ghosts, they haunt the highlands
That fell into the sea
They scale the cliffs at twilight
Searching for the key

Their eyes, they glow like torches
With hollow mouths, they scream
They rule the wind and water
Of the kingdom that sank in

They rise up from the bogs at night
When the corncrake starts to cry
The lowland peat begins to shift
The full moon starts to rise

They search in vain for entrance
To the kingdom lost at sea
The castle doors grow barnacles
The halls are choked with weeds

Far off on the hillside
By Saint Macreehy's grave
The eel will mark the headstones
Of the ones that come awake

The eel, she travels freely
The water gives her sight
The ocean is her looking glass
To glimpse the other side

Without the sun, without the wind
The kingdom fell to rot
The scarlet scourge of witch broom gall
Has made the ash roots soft

The ghosts wail at the castle doors
To curse the fallen king
The king calls in the cloaking fog
The gods call in the wind

They come out every twilight
Beyond the castle walls
The ghosts that search the highlands
For the kingdom that was lost.