13 Knots from Incantation by Sharon Knight

13 Knots
(copyright Sharon Knight 2000)


Come ye man and ye woman rest awhile by the old oak tree
And ponder you the answers to these age-old riddles three
What price costs love and with what will you be made to pay
And how many knots tied in silken thread will make your sweetheart stay

Oh Sylvan moon what lover wouldn’t give her very breath
For the promise that the love of two would outlast even death
But forever can’t be given away on the breeze of a winter’s night
You must take your chance in the trickster’s ring and boldly you must fight.

And boldly you must fight
Though you may not have tomorrow what you have tonight
Keep the candle of your faith burning bright
You’ve got to want your love to live with all your might

For death may come a-knocking on your beloved’s door
Boldly take his life although he pleads for one year more
Or a lusty meadow flower with sweeter lips than yours
Might swoon and croon and charm him till he thinks of you no more

The path you walk together may be forked along the way
And though he’d like to go with you he knows he cannot stay
Or one love could grow stronger while the other only wanes
Alas life’s cruel joker draws the upper hand again

And boldly you must fight
Though you may not have tomorrow what you have tonight
Keep the candle of your faith burning bright
You’ve got to want your love to live with all your might

13 knots in the rose red ribbon, 13 candles blaze
But not one word of promise will you get for the magick you raise
With no potion do you stand a chance but the strength of your own desire
And the slicing edge of a sharpened will to cut the kindling for your fire

How the Gods would answer love’s three riddles I don’t know
I will take my lover’s hand in mine, my courage I will show
We shall meet the devil’s challenge though his cunning strengthens still
In the hope that the bottomless well of love shall evermore be our fill

And boldly we will fight
Though we may not have tomorrow what we have tonight
We’ll keep the candle of our faith burning bright
And we’ll dream our love alive with all our might
Because we want our love to live with all our might

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