A tiny two-act play: a man's candle has gone out, he knocks on his friend Pierrot's door to borrow a quill pen and a light, and Pierrot, from under the covers, tells him to try the neighbour instead. That is the whole story, and it has been sung on this melody since at least 1576, which makes the tune older than the plays of Shakespeare.
The language pay-off is the imperative. - and - are the pattern for asking anything of a friend in French: verb first, then -moi. You will use this shape for ever.
Two glosses the song needs: chandelle is an old word for a candle (modern French says une bougie), and ma chandelle est morte - my candle has died - is exactly how French says a flame has gone out. , in Pierrot's kitchen, is striking flint to make a spark: the eighteenth-century equivalent of the neighbour whose lights are still on.
The 1870 songbook prints two further verses in which the visitor takes Pierrot's advice about the neighbour rather too well. We teach the two verses Weckerlin's own children's edition kept, and leave the rest to your curiosity.