Pulled my skiff into a harbor town,
Salt on the rails and the sun goin’ down,
Old men leanin’ where the lanterns swing,
Talkin’ ‘bout ghosts that the night tides bring.
One pointed out where the white cliffs stand,
Weathered by wind and a broken heart’s hand,
Said, “Son, those rocks weren’t carved by the sea—
That lace in the stone’s from a memory.”
He said the tide remembers everything,
Every sail and every broken dream.
They say a princess walked those cliffs alone,
Watchin’ the dark where the ships had gone,
Cryin’ for a sailor lost one day
In the turning tide of the western bay.
Every tear that touched that stack
Left its mark in the weathered rock,
And the waves still whisper when the moon rides high
Of the love she lost to the restless tide.
Next night I climbed where the gulls all cry,
Wind like a fiddle through the Algarve sky,
Moon on the water, silver and wide,
Ghost of a ship on the turning tide.
Thought I heard footsteps on broken stone,
Soft like a prayer in the dark alone,
Maybe the wind, maybe memory’s call—
Or a heart that never left those walls.
They say a princess walked those cliffs alone,
Watchin’ the dark where the ships had gone,
Cryin’ for a sailor lost one day
In the turning tide of the western bay.
Every tear that touched that stack
Left its mark in the weathered rock,
And the waves still whisper when the moon rides high
Of the love she lost to the restless tide.
Some sailors swear on a moonlit tack
They’ve seen her stand on Ladrão Stack.
Silver dress in the ocean wind,
Still watchin’ the horizon for him.
Yeah the princess still walks Ladrão Stack,
Where the wind and the moonlight wander back,
And the sea keeps tellin’ the same old tale
To every lost soul under moonlit sail.
Raise a glass when the night runs black—
To the girl on the cliffs of Ladrão Stack.
And if you sail where the wild waves roam,
Listen close…
She’s still callin’ him home.