Come all you young fellers so young and so fine
And seek not your fortune in a dark dreary mine
It'll form like a habit and seep to your soul
Till 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
Come midnight, or morning, or the middle of the day
It's the same to the miner who labors away
For the demons of death often come by surprise
One fall of the slate and you're buried alive
For 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
My body will blacken and turn into coal
I'll look from the door of my heavenly home
And pity the miners who diggin' my bones
For 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
And it's dark as a dungeon way down in the mines
Come all you young fellers so young and so fine
And seek not your fortune in a dark dreary mine