Her wheel still turns by the cottage door
Where the wool remembers the moorland roar
Fingers nimble as the wind through her eye
Twist the fleets into a golden sigh
The firelight dances on the cobwebbed loom
Weaving shadows in the flickering gloom
But the merchant's cloth
so smooth and cheap
Has stolen the songs that the spindles keep
Oh,
spin it fine,
spin it slow Let the wheel hum what the heart still knows
The fiddle sighs with the spinner's art
A tune as old as the hill's own heart
Sing, old mother,
through the twilight spread Some threads still hold
when the rest are bent
He brought her silk from a foreign land
Left a silver coin in her outstretched hand
No one wants wool
when the world moves fast
The past is a weight you cannot grasp
Now the accordion wheezes a factory's groan
As she cards the last fleece she'll ever own
The wheel still turns,
though the market's cold
Her hands weave storing the cloth-worn hope
Oh,
spin it fine,
spin it slow Let the wheel hum what the heart still knows
The fiddle sighs with the spinner's art A
tune as old as the hill's own heart Sing,
old mother,
through the twilight spread
Some threads still hold
when the rest are bent
The young girls stare
at the mill's new dress
Bright as a penny and half
the stress
But their fingers itch
for the lanolin's grace And the touch of wool on a grandmother's face
Oh, the wheel may stop
and the loom goes still
But the sheep still walk
on the wind-bent hill
Now her wheel sits silent,
the wool all spun
Fire burns low
where the work was done
But deep in the forest