It was late, quiet, a Friday at the crossroads
It was cold, autumn, the fires burning low
As I followed a trail of flowers through the wood
Each one shaped like a rose with the color and the fragrance of snow
And all the whiskey was drunk and the music dying down
As I took one in my fist and I tore it from the ground
And there was blood on my palm from where the thorns cut in
And I thought of the lover I thought I'd never see again
Then he stood there before me, a man with hollow eyes
He looked half-asleep, half-human, and only half alive
And as my legs on their own bore me gently towards him
My lips parted and I murmured the name of my darling
My lover, my long-lost Tam Lin...
He looked just the same as ten years before
When he was torn from my bed in the midst of a storm
By a woman whose name we don't speak in this town
Who wears the bones of her lovers
And their blood in her gown
And then with a cold wind that woman was there
A beauty unparalleled with stars in her hair
That shattered and danced like fire on her skin
The lover, the captor of my darling Tam Lin
As I held him closer she smiled like death
Told me I'd have him back if we both passed her test, said
"He's no longer the man who laid in your bed
But why bother with words when I can show you instead?"
And then in my arms, I held a lion
That clawed at my eyes until I couldn't see
And then a host of maggots all seething and writhing
As his voice cried out in terror, "Just let go of me!"
But I held him close though his body kept changing
A serpent, a bear, his cells rearranging
Said "I'll never let you go again, my darling Tam Lin
Though you break all my bones and you serrate my skin"
And all through the night though broken and sore
I clung tight to monsters each worse than before
As the wicked queen who tore him from me laughed at the sight
Of my darling, my lover, skinning me alive
Then dawn broke, and silence, I opened my eyes
They were whole and undamaged, and there by my side
Was my darling Tam Lin, pressed his lips to my own, said
"Though Death do us part, I will never let you go..."
"Though Death do us part, I will never let you go
Though Death do us part, I will never let you go
Though Death do us part, I will never let you go
My darling, my lover, I will never let you go..."