Beeswing

I was nineteen when I came to town

They called in 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

I fell in love with a laundry girl

Who was working next to me

She was a rare thing

Fine as a beeswing

So fine a breath of wind might blow her away

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

Brown hair zig-zagged round her face

And a look of half-surprise

Like a fox caught in the headlights

There was an animal in her eyes

She said, young man, O 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

She was a rare thing

Fine as a beeswing

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, O man, you foolish man

It surely sounds like hell

You might be lord of half the world

You'll not own me as well

She was a rare thing

Fine as a beeswing

So fine a breath of wind might blow her away

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 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 were drinking more in those days

And tempers reached a pitch

And like a fool I let her run

With the rambling itch

The last I heard she was 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 settliing 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

She was a rare thing

Fine as a beeswing

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

Then I wouldn't want her any other way

• Artist:Richard Thompson