Beside the shores of Torridon there’s a man who lives alone
With an acre of poor grazing land and a cottage built of stone
And he’s trying to last the winter on a small and meagre store
While December winds go howling and the rain corrodes the door
Sheltered from the westerlies by a belt of rugged pines
The frosty nights his enemies and the sun so rarely shines
The people in the Village say he doesn’t seem to mind
But no-one saw him yesterday, and he isn’t of their kind
He may have been there many years, they couldn’t really tell
For no-one cared to know of him when first he came to dwell
And now he lives in solitude and wanders by the tide
Beyond their reach or reasoning, a man who turned aside
It’s in the early morning his feet are on the road
Beside the shores of Torridon to search the seas for gold
And when the daylight fades away his path is homeward bound
To a place beside the dwindling fire with the treasures that he’s found
He knows within his quiet mind the songs that people sing
And something of the emptiness the crowded places bring
Beside the shores of Torridon the world and he are one
A man whose friends are memories and a hope for times to come |
