Verse 1 He was cut from older timber, the kind that doesn’t warp in rain, a lantern keeper from a century when promises burned steady flames. He walked like a man who carried history in the lining of his coat, with manners polished smooth as river stones and fairness stitched into every note. He spoke in quiet sentences that landed like a carpenter’s square, true, level, measured, never bending just to please the air. Verse 2 But the world turned neon on him, bright enough to blind the wise, where silver tongues outshined the truth and paper crowns replaced the prize. He watched the dealmakers dealing shadows, watched the grifters gild their lies, watched the loud ones drown the gentle and the crooked claim they’re justified. He stood there like a lighthouse in a harbor built on sand, steady in a place that only honored shifting plans. Verse 3 He tried to plant his values in a field that wouldn’t hold a seed, tried to trade in honesty where counterfeit was all they’d need. Every handshake felt like smoke, every promise turned to dust, and he learned that in this modern age, a man like him was dangerous for trusting. So he folded up his kindness like a letter no one reads, and walked away before the world could teach him how to bleed. Verse 4 Now he keeps his company with pine trees and the long, slow winter wind, lets the river do the talking, lets the mountains call him friend. The city lights can’t find him where the night is honest, deep, and wide, and the only judge that knows his name is the moon that follows at his side. He’s a ghost of older virtues drifting through a younger land, the last of the lantern men, living quiet as he can. Outro And though the world may call him broken, though they say he turned and ran, he knows he didn’t lose his place — the world just lost the kind of man who could stand without a witness, who could love without a scheme, who could live without the armor people wear to chase their dreams. So he settles in the silence where the honest still belong, a solitary figure humming one forgotten, faithful song.