Gone to weave by steam

Come all you cotton weavers,
your looms you may pull down;
you must get employed in factories,
in country or in town,
for our cotton masters have found out
a wonderful new scheme,
these calico goods now wove by hand
they’re going to weave by steam...

If you go into a loom-shop
where there’s three or four pair of looms,
they are all standing empty,
encumbrances of the rooms;
and if you ask the reason why,
the old mother will tell you plain,
my daughters have forsaken them,
and gone to weave by steam...