Darby's Castle
Kris Kristofferson Lyrics

See the ruin on the hill, where the smoke is hanging still,
Observe the remains of what was once a grand estate atop the hill, where the residual smoke gives off a mysterious and eerie quality, reminiscent of a time long ago.

Like an echo of an age long forgotten.
This ruin serves as a reminder of a bygone era, and is akin to hearing an echo from an era long since passed.

There's a story of a home crushed beneath those blackened stones,
This ruin has a tale of tragedy, where the once stately home was reduced to rubble.

And the roof that fell before the beams were rotten.
The home was not destroyed due to natural causes or wear and tear, but rather in a sudden and violent calamity.

Cecil Darby loved his wife, and he laboured all his life,
Cecil Darby was a hardworking man who loved his wife deeply.

To provide her with material possessions.
He wanted to ensure that she had everything she could ever want, including material goods.

And he built for her a home of the finest wood and stone.
He constructed a magnificent and luxurious home out of the best materials available.

And the building soon became his sole obsession.
However, his fixation on building the perfect home consumed him entirely.

Oh, it took three-hundred days, for the timbers to be raised,
It took Cecil Darby a considerable amount of time to construct the home he had envisioned.

And the silhouette was seen for miles around.
The grandeur of the home was impressive, and its outline could be seen from quite a distance.

And the gables reached as high as the eagles in the sky,
The roof of the home towered above, almost as high as the eagles soaring overhead.

But it only took one night to bring it down,
Despite the immense amount of effort put into building this home, it was destroyed in a single, unanticipated event.

When Darby's castle tumbled to the ground.
The once-proud home lay in ruins, shattered and destroyed beyond repair.

Though they shared a common bed, there was precious little said,
Even though Cecil Darby and his wife shared a bed, they did not communicate much with one another.

In the moments that were set aside for sleepin'.
They used their time in bed primarily for sleeping, not for conversation or intimacy.

For his busy dreams were filled with the rooms he'd yet to build,
Cecil Darby's mind was always preoccupied with the next project, and he was constantly thinking about the home he still had yet to perfect.

And he never heard young Helen Darby weeping.
His wife, Helen, cried herself to sleep often, but Cecil was too preoccupied with his work to notice.

Then one night he heard a sound, as he laid his pencil down,
One evening, amidst his musings about his next project, Cecil heard a suspicious noise.

And he traced it to her door and turned the handle.
He followed the sound to his wife's door and opened it to investigate the source of the disturbance.

And the pale light of the moon through the window of the room,
In the dim moonlight that filled the room, Cecil saw something that broke his heart.

Split the shadows where two bodies lay entangled.
He saw his wife with another man, wrapped up in each other's arms.

Oh, it took three-hundred days, for the timbers to be raised,
The laborious and time-consuming task of constructing this magnificent home was not without its flaws.

And the silhouette was seen for miles around.
Despite its shortcomings, the home's massive size and grandeur captured people's attention and admiration.

And the gables reached as high as the eagles in the sky,
The roof was ambitious and awe-inspiring, reaching up to seemingly impossible heights.

But it only took one night to bring it down,
Yet, just as quickly as it had captured the public's imagination, it was reduced to rubble in an instant.

When Darby's castle tumbled to the ground.
Cecil Darby's dream home was now nothing more than a pile of rubble, shattered forever.