Richard Thompson: Beeswing

I was nineteen when I came to town, they called it the Summer of Love They were burning babies, burning flags. The hawks against the doves I took a job in the steamie down on Cauldrum Street And I fell in love with a laundry girl who was working next to me Oh she was a rare thing, fine as a bee's wing So fine a breath of wind might blow her away She was a lost child, oh she was running wild She said "As long as there's no price on love, I'll stay. And you wouldn't want me any other way" Brown hair zig-zag around her face and a look of half-surprise Like a fox caught in the headlights, there was animal in her eyes She said "Young man, oh can't you see I'm not the factory kind If you don't take me out of here I'll surely lose my mind" Oh she was a rare thing, fine as a bee's wing So fine that I might crush her where she lay She was a lost child, she was running wild She said "As long as there's no price on love, I'll stay. And you wouldn't want me any other way" We busked around the market towns and picked fruit down in Kent And we could tinker lamps and pots and knives wherever we went And I said that we might settle down, get a few acres dug Fire burning in the hearth and babies on the rug She said "Oh man, you foolish man, it surely sounds like hell. You might be lord of half the world, you'll not own me as well" Oh she was a rare thing, fine as a bee's wing So fine a breath of wind might blow her away She was a lost child, oh she was running wild She said "As long as there's no price on love, I'll stay. And you wouldn't want me any other way" We was camping down the Gower one time, the work was pretty good She thought we shouldn't wait for the frost and I thought maybe we should We was drinking more in those days and tempers reached a pitch And like a fool I let her run with the rambling itch Oh the last I heard she's sleeping rough back on the Derby beat White Horse in her hip pocket and a wolfhound at her feet And they say she even married once, a man named Romany Brown But even a gypsy caravan was too much settling down And they say her flower is faded now, hard weather and hard booze But maybe that's just the price you pay for the chains you refuse Oh she was a rare thing, fine as a bee's wing And I miss her more than ever words could say If I could just taste all of her wildness now If I could hold her in my arms today Well I wouldn't want her any other way