Down in the dark of the Cumberland Mine
 there?s blood on the coalmen and the miners lie
 In the roads that never saw sun nor sky

 In the town of Springhill you don?t sleep easy
 Often the earth will tremble and roll
 When the earth is restless miners die
 Bone and blood is the price of coal

 In the town of Springhill, Nova Scotia
 Late in the year of fifty-eight
 Day still comes and the sun still shines
 But it?s dark as the grave in the Cumberland mine

 Down at the coal face miners working
 Rattle of the belt and the cutter?s blade
 Rumble of the rock and the walls closed round
 The living and the dead men two miles down

 Twelve men lay two miles from the pitshaft
 Twelve men lay in the dark and sang
 Long hot days in the miners tomb
 It was three feet high and a hundred long

 Three days past and the lamps gave out
 Our foreman rose on his elbow and said
 We?re out of light  and water and bread
 So we?ll live on song and hope instead