Twist ye, twine ye! even so,
Mingle shades of joy and woe,
Hope, and fear, and peace, and strife,
In the thread of human life.

While the mystic twist is spinning,
And the infant's life beginning,
Dimly seen through twilight bending,
Lo, what varied shapes attending!

Passions wild, and follies vain,
Pleasures soon exchanged for pain;
Doubt, and jealousy, and fear,
In the magic dance appear.

Now they wax, and now they dwindle,
Whirling with the whirling spindle.
Twist ye, twine ye! even so,
Mingle human bliss and woe. -

Confirmed with Sir Walter Scott, Scott's Poetical Works,Wordsworth Edition Limited, Ware, Hertfordshire, 1995, page 475.

Songs of Meg Merrilies - Guy Mannering or The Astrologer Vol 1, Chap iii

Text Authorship:

• by Walter Scott, Sir (1771 - 1832), ""Twist ye, twine ye"", written 1815, appears in Guy Mannering or The Astrologer , Archibald Constable and Co. Edinburgh and Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, London, first published 1815 [author's text checked 1 time against a primary source]

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):

• by Francis George Scott (1880 - 1958), "Twist ye, twine ye", published 1934 [ voice and piano ], from Scottish Lyrics, Book 3, no. 1, Bayley & Ferguson [sung text not yet checked]

Researcher for this page: Iain Sneddon [Guest Editor]

This text was added to the website: 2018-11-22
Line count: 16
Word count: 89