[Chorus 1]
If I could only fly;
if I could build a bridge,
I'd carry you my love
across the spanning bridge.
If there were just some way
I'd pull a carriage through the snow:
take you over Kelly's Mountain
to the village there below,
and no one would ever know.
[Verse 1]
Oh the snow was high again
in the year of 1910
when I rode over Kelly's top from Lake Bras d'Or
O're the mountain I had come
without rapier, without gun
to fetch my fathers order from the St. Anne store.
As I purchased my supplies
a pretty maiden caught my eye,
her beauty shone upon me like the sun
As my heart melted away
I heard somebody say
"that is the daughter fair of Hugh MacGowan".
Well she knew she caught my eye
and she smiled as she walked by
saying "meet me when the stars come out tonight.
On the high road I will wait
by old Don Campbell's gate
and we'll sing as song of love there in the moonlight".
[Chorus]
[Verse 2]
I knew MacGowan was a man
with a very heavy hand,
and his daughter was the meaning to his life.
All her suitors they had come
to the wrong end of his gun.
As long as he was living she'd be no man's wife.
But I met her 'neith the stars
and I took her in my arms
and she said please take me with you when you go.
Beneath my father's cruel hand
no longer I can stand
I'll leave with you and he will never know.
[Chorus]
[Verse 3]
We were halfway up the hill
when a gunshot broke the still
and I felt the pain burn deep within my side.
She said "My God we have to run,
my father has a gun
and he'll never let you take me as your bride".
In my pain I slipped and fell
and it wasn't hard to tell
that MacGowan cursed my soul up far behind
I pulled her sobbing to my breast
saying "Here I've come to rest,
but there's something that I wish before I'm dying"
[Chorus 2]
"If you could only fly;
if you could build a bridge,
You'd carry me my love
across that spanning bridge.
Please tell my father why
you had to bury me in the snow
near the top of Kelly's Mountain
where the winds forever blow
or no one will ever know"