OH the three singing sisters, they sat and span,

While the red thread through their faint fingers rightly ran.

Oh their faces were fearful, their forms were tall,

Their garments fell like a funeral pall,

And they sang a song as they span their thread,

And they that dwelt among the dead

Came and sat at the feet of those sisters three,

And heard their soul-thrilling threnody.

Some sat and listened, some stood aloof

Watching them weaving their weird woof.

And the three singing sisters sat and span,

And the red thread through their faint fingers rightly ran.

And this was the song that those sisters sung,

‘Go take thy lot the wide world among,

And on thy forehead I write my curse

From thy cradle unto thine hearse;

Be miserable among happiness,

Be filled with good things in thy distress

Visible for thine eyes shall be

Such shameful sights, as none may see;

Such sounds thine ears shall hear,

As shall cause thy soul to quake with fear;

My bitter draught thy tongue shall taste

And drain the dregs to the very last,

Thy soul shall seek and thine heart shall crave

Such things, as thou mayest not have;

If thou love any among men,

Then shall the living all be slain,

But the dead shall rise again,

Rise again with a purple stain

That all may know them to be such

As have felt the contagion of thy touch.’

And the three singing sisters sat and span,

And the red thread through their faint fingers rightly ran.

And then methought in that same place,

In the depths of the darkness, a fearfuller face

Laughed with a mad malignity,

And laughed and laughed eternally.

While the three singing sisters sat and span,

And the red thread through their faint fingers rightly ran.