DARK AS A DUNGEON
 

Come all you young fellers, so young and so fine

And seek not your fortunes way down in the mine

It will form like a habit and seep in your soul

'Til the stream of your blood flows as black as the coal

 

   It's dark as a dungeon and damp as the dew

   Where the dangers are 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

 

There is many a man I have seen in my day

Who lived just to labor his whole life away

Like the fiend with his dope and the drunkard his wine

A man will have lust for the lure of the mine

 

   It's dark as a dungeon and damp as the dew

   Where the dangers are 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

 

I hope when I'm dead and the ages shall roll

That my body will blacken and turn into coal

I will look from the door of my heavenly home

And pity the miner a' diggin' my bones

 

   It's dark as a dungeon and damp as the dew

   Where the dangers are 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

   It's dark as a dungeon way down in the mine

   It's dark as a dungeon way down in the mine

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