and seek not your fortune in a dark, dreary mine.
It'll form as a habit and seep in your soul
'til the stream of your blood runs as black as the coal.

(Chorus:)
Where it's dark as a dungeon and damp as the dew.
Where the danger is double and the pleasures are few.
Where the rain never falls and the sun never shines,
it's dark as a dungeon way down in the mines.

(Chorus)

Well, there's many a man I have known in my day
who lived just to labor his whole life away.
Like a fiend with his dope and a drunkard his wine,
a man will have lust for the lure of the mine.

(Chorus)

Well, I hope when I die and the ages shall roll,
my body will blacken and turn into coal.
Then I'll look from the door of my heavenly home
and pity the miner, a-diggin' my bones.

(Chorus