Lyrics
Keep your lamps trimmed and burning,
Keep your lamps trimmed and burning,
Keep your lamps trimmed and burning,
For this old world is almost done.
Brother, don't you get worried,
Brother, don't you get worried,
Brother, don't you get worried,
For this old world is almost done.
Children, don't get weary,
Children, don't get weary,
Children, don't get weary,
For this old world is almost done.
Public domain hymn text. Traditional African American spiritual, author unknown.
The Story Behind the Hymn
'Keep Your Lamps Trimmed and Burning' is a traditional African American spiritual with no documented single author, developed within Southern Black church communities and passed down orally before being collected by folklorists in the decades following the Civil War.
Its central image draws directly on Jesus's parable of the ten virgins in Matthew 25, in which five wise virgins keep their oil lamps properly maintained and ready for a bridegroom's unannounced arrival, while five foolish virgins run out of oil and are shut out when he finally comes.
The command to keep a lamp 'trimmed,' meaning its wick properly cut and maintained for a clean, steady flame, was a genuine, ordinary household task in the nineteenth century, giving the song's spiritual instruction a very concrete, physically familiar counterpart.
That grounding in real domestic labor gave the parable's abstract call to readiness an immediate, practical shape: readiness for Christ's return was pictured not as a vague inner disposition but as something requiring the same ongoing, unglamorous maintenance as an actual household lamp.
The song's repeated closing line, 'this old world is almost done,' gives every verse a shared sense of urgency, treating the call to stay ready not as abstract future planning but as a response to time that is already running short.
Its verses addressing 'brother' and 'children' directly, urging them not to 'get worried' or 'get weary,' balance that urgency with reassurance, treating watchfulness as compatible with calm rather than requiring constant anxiety.
That combination, real urgency paired with steady reassurance, gave the song particular usefulness in congregational settings meant to encourage perseverance, and it remains a familiar spiritual in both traditional worship and concert choir repertoires.
