Oh come all you young fellows so young and so fine
Seek not your fortune in a dark dreary mine
It'll form as a habit and seep in your soul
Till the stream of your blood runs as black as the coal
It's dark as a dungeon, as damp as the dew
Where danger is double and pleasures are few
Where the rain never falls and the sun never shines
It's a dark as a dungeon way down the line
Well it's many a man that I've seen in my day
Who live just to labour his life away
Like a fiend with his dope and a drunkard with his wine
A man will have lust for the lure of the mine
It's dark as a dungeon, as damp as the dew
Where danger is double and pleasures are few
Where the rain never falls and the sun never shines
It's a dark as a dungeon way down the line
Oh midnight, in the morning or the middle of the day
It's the same to the minor who labours away
But the demons of death often come by surprise
One fall of the slate and you're buried alive
It's dark as a dungeon, as damp as the dew
Where danger is double and pleasures are few
Where the rain never falls and the sun never shines
It's a dark as a dungeon way down the line
And pray when I'm dead and my ages shall roll
That my body would blacken and turn into coal
Then I'll look from the door of my heavenly home and pity the miner digging my bones
Where it's dark as a dungeon
It's dark as a dungeon, as damp as the dew
Where danger is double and pleasures are few
Where the rain never falls and the sun never shines
It's a dark as a dungeon way down the line