Then I lost my mind And my breathing was ragged and my eyes were blind And I ran and I fled to the dry river bed In my search for release of some kind But those Romans of yore They brought with them a lot that they should answer for For each patch of the ground, well, the nettles abound And I braced as I sank to the floor Like the time I walked barefoot from Garsington To Horspath, in a bid to keep me sane But found more pain Now the woodpecker laughs on the dry river bed The nettles are dead, the nettles are dead So I sat and I sat With the branches in front and the bark at my back Though the mercy was small, barely mercy at all Still it stilled the melee on my track And comfort I sought Disabused myself of the erroneous thought That each little thing has to come with a sting And to bring little more than it ought Like the time I locked myself inside and cried The night after I crossed the great divide Yet still I cried Like the time I walked along an unlit lane At midnight, at the mercy of the fates And found my gate Now the woodpecker laughs on the dry river bed The nettles are dead, the nettles are dead