Lone Flag on Tom Buidhe

Sitting down about a highland glen

When the sun had long been lost

The wind blown far from the sound of men

Streams trapped hard in frost,

I heard a song where the small fir stood

Like the distant cry of children in the woods.

There is a strange sorrow at this cold year's end

In the dark towers of the winter mountain

Yearning for men.

The raven wheels up the snowswept ways

There is a strange sadness

In this land at the back of the day.

At home we would climb and shout from trees

To the summer sky

Nor see in the rout the silent truth step by

The truth is always there

Unseen shadows stealing where

In gentle shelter the soft leaves lie.

Here I rest stamping lost feet

Here by the frozen lochan twilight falls

Here crouched under a desolation of rising heavens

The coldness crawls over white boulder

I cannot cry

There is no-one will hear.

Time to come in off the frozen ben

The night is settling down

And I long to travel home again

And I dream of my own home town

The snow is descending from on high

Up top a flag is flying on Tom Buidhe.

Richard Henderson