Come and listen you fellers so young and so fine
And seek not your fortune in the dark, dreary mines
It will form as a habit and seep in your soul
'Til the stream of your blood is as black as the coal

It's dark as the dungeon and damp as the dew
Where danger is doubled and pleasures are few
Where the rain never falls and the sun never shines
It's dark as the dungeon way down in the mines

It's a many a man I have seen 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

I hope when I'm gone and the ages shall roll
My body will blacken and form into coal
Then I'll look from the door of my Heavenly home
And pity the miner a-digging my bones

Where it's dark as the dungeon and damp as the dew
Where the danger is doubled and pleasures are few
Where the rain never falls and the sun never shines
It's dark as the dungeon way down in the mines

The midnight, the morning, the breaking of day
Are the same to the miner who labors away
Where the demons of death often come by surprise
One slip of the slate and you're buried alive