Dark as a Dungeon

Come and listen you fellows, 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

And 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

And it's dark as a dungeon way down in the mines

Well it'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 mines

And 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

And it's dark as a dungeon way down in the mines

Oh midnight, or the morning, or the middle of the day

It's the same to the miner who labors away

Where the demons of death often come by surprise

One fall of the slate and you're buried alive

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

And it's dark as a dungeon way down in the mines

I hope when I'm gone 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 diggin' my bones

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

And it's dark as a dungeon way down in the mines