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