🕯️ The Lantern Keeper [Spoken Intro] Distant wind, soft rain, one tolling bell, low cello "There is an old road beyond the hills that no map remembers anymore. But every night, one lantern still burns there..." [Verse 1] Where the old road meets the moor, beyond the standing stones, I light the lamp beside my door and keep the watch alone. They say no traveler comes this way, no footsteps cross the rain, but still I raise the golden flame when darkness falls again. [Pre-Chorus] For sometimes through the midnight mist I hear a distant name... [Chorus] Follow the lantern through the rain, past the stones that know your name. When every road has disappeared, one little flame is waiting here. Solas... treòraich iad dhachaigh... Light... guide them home... Through wind and dark, through grief and night, the lost will always know the light. [Verse 2] One winter night the storm came down, the blackest I had known, then through the fog a woman walked, barefoot and alone. She did not knock or speak to me, she only watched the flame, then whispered softly through the rain: "You kept it lit... I came." [Instrumental Break] Haunting fiddle enters over cello and Celtic harp. Tin whistle answers from the distance. Slow bodhrán begins like a heartbeat. The lantern motif grows into a sweeping orchestral melody. [Verse 3] She stood beside the ancient stones where silver moonlight fell, and others slowly crossed the mist without a word farewell. A sailor, child, an aging man, faces lost to years... each passed beneath the lantern glow and vanished with their fears. Then suddenly I understood what all those nights had meant: I never guarded empty roads. I guided those who went. [Bridge] Soft male voice, almost spoken Solas anns an dorchadas... Light within the darkness... Treòraich iad dhachaigh... Guide them home... And somewhere beyond the veil a thousand voices answered... "We saw your light." [Final Chorus] Follow the lantern through the rain, past the stones that know your name. When every road has disappeared, one little flame is waiting here. Solas... treòraich iad dhachaigh... Through storm and years, through longest night, the lost will always find the light. And when my final evening comes, when these old hands can light no more... perhaps another lantern will be burning on the shore. [Outro] Fiddle and distant choir, rain slowly fading "All these years I thought I kept the lantern burning..." "But perhaps... the lantern was keeping me." One bell toll. Solas... Fade.
