High on the crags where the whispering wind blows,Where timberlines fade into blankets of snow,Lives Branko the gypsy, a soul wild and free,With a caravan painted like waves of the sea.He owns not a meadow, he claims not a town,His goats pull his wagon as trails wind on down,But the wealth of his spirit is found in his choice,And the magic that rings in his yodeling voice(yodeling starts this verse) .His low chesty tones give the shepherds a sign,Of wolves in the shadows or frost on the vine,While sharp piercing notes tell of avalanches near,A wild weather vane that the valley holds dear.But a Duke in the valley grew blinded by pride,And blasted the stone of the steep mountainside,To build a great fortress of iron and stone,Ignoring the warnings the peaks made their own.The mountain responded with fury and sound,And trapped the Duke’s son deep within the dark ground,A rockslide had choked out the eastern canyon pass,With boulders as heavy as oceans of glass.The guards could not venture, the earth was too frail,A shout or a footstep would shatter the trail,The Duke sent a rider with gold in his hand,To beg for the gypsy who mastered the land.Branko pushed back the gold but he stepped to the rim,The fate of the lost boys depended on him,He filled up his lungs with the crisp, icy air,And cast out a melody over despair. (very deep yodeling long and fierce)His notes danced like lightning on granite and scree,Testing the stone with a rare frequency,He found the firm bedrock and held a sharp tone,To guide them past fractures and collapsing stone.The guards and the boy followed the sound of his cry,And walked out alive underneath the blue sky,But Branko just smiled at the courts of the Duke,And yodeled back home to the stars and the flute.
