The copper pot sings with the tallow's breath,
dripping slow like the tears of death.
Her fingers twist the flaxen thread,
dipping,
dipping the hours to red.
The church pays silver for altar light,
the tavern pays for the drunkard's night.
But no coin shines for the chandler's hands,
just wax-stained years and candle sand.
Oh, burn it down,
burn it bright,
the chandler's trade and the thief of night.
The fiddle hums where the wicks all pray,
for one more dawn,
one more day.
Weep, willow, weep, where the river's black,
so nights fade slow,
but never come back.
He came with ink
and a merchant's tongue,
left a paraffin song where the beeswax hung.
Progress, he said, never smells of smoke,
and your cottage trade is a fading joke.
Now the accordion wheezes a factory tune,
as she pours the molds by the sickly moon.
The new lamps hiss in the vicar's stall,
no drifts, no ghosts, and no scent at all.
Oh, burn it down,
burn it bright,
the chandler's
trade and the thief of night.
The fiddle hums where the wicks all pray,
for one more dawn,
one more day.
Weep, willow, weep, where the river's black,
some lights fade slow,
never come back.
The rich man's house glows gaslight clear,
the workhouse coughs on tallow fear.
The children's hands that trim the molds will never know
the scent it holds.
Oh,
the candle's tongue licks history's page,
but time prefers a cleaner age.
Now her copper cools where the cobwebs weep,
the last wick drowns in its waxen grave.
But deep in the church where the shadows play,
one candle flickers with olden way.
And when it gutters,
the saints will see that God was born where the light
used to be.
Now her copper cools
where the cobwebs weep,
the last wick.