General’s Daughter

I fell in love with a general's daughter
And ran away with her, far across the border
Rolled in the heather where the wild-fox plays
And our shadows moved like the rippling waves
Told her I wanted to sing and to dance
And we did but the soldiers that were sent for to search
By her father who was angered by our display of nerve
Were poking in the hill-side with bayonets sharp
They'd just found our horses, and soon they would chance
On the crushed, clutching grass, still warm from our hearts
But, for me a noose and for my love to bear
The cloak and the cross that the Carmelite nuns, do wear

And we talked of love in the great blue yonder
And we kissed the blue stones from the Druid's altar
Rolled up in the yellow-heather gorse mountain range
Her cries rise, tell me no lies, when she dies, like Shakespeare says
Opium and whiskey give me wild flimsey whims
Our first born would carry like the four-cornered winds
Name he would wear like a tenth-century prince
Ah, while smiling crazy that his life was a cinch
Or a girl-child not given to those safe-lady whims
Laughter wild graces that warm every inch
But, for me a noose and for my love to bear
The cloak and the cross that the Carmelite nuns, do wear