[title page:] "Old Night Lamp" (1841)
[cover title: "The Old Night Lamp"]
A Ballad.
As sung with great applause by Henry Russell.
Composed and Arranged for the Piano Forte
& Respectfully dedicated to Mrs. Berry,
by Henry Russell, 1812-1900.

Boston: Henry Prentis, 33 Chestnut Court

1.
Oh scorn me not as a fameless thing,
Nor turn with contempt from the song I sing,
’Tis true, I am not suffer’d to be
On the ringing board of wassail glee;
My pallid gleam must never fall,
In the gay saloon or lordly hall;
But many a tale does the Nightlamp know
Of secret sorrow and lonely woe.

2.
I'm found in the closely curtain’d room,
Where a stillness reigns that breathes of the tomb,
Where the breaking heart, and heavy eye
Are waiting to see a lov’d one die,
Where the doating child with noiseless tread,
Steals warily to the mothers bed;
I’m wildly snatch’d and my glim’ring ray,
Shows a glazing eye and stiff’ning clay.

3.
I am the light that quivering flits
In the joyless home where the fond wife sits,
Waiting the one that flies his hearth,
For the gambler’s dice and drunkard’s mirth,
She mournfully trims my slender wick,
As she sees me fading and wasting quick;
And many a time has my spark expired,
And left her still the weeping and tired.

4.
Many a lesson the bosom learns,
Of hapless grief, while the night lamp burns.
Many a scene unfolds to me
That the heart would bleed to see
Then scorn me not as a fameless thing,
Nor turn with contempt from the song I sing;
But smile as ye will, or scorn as ye may,
There’s nought to be found but truth in the lay.