Come and listen you fellows
So young and so fine
And 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

Where it's dark as a dungeon
And damp as the dew
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 in the mine

Well it's many a man

That I've seen in my day
That would lived just to labor
His whole life away
Like a fiend with his dope

And like a drunkard his wine
A man will have lust for
The lure of the mine

Where it's dark as a dungeon
And damp as the dew

Danger is double
And pleasures are few

Where the rain never falls
And the sun never shines

And it's a dark as a dungeon
Way down in the mine

The midnight  or the morning
Or the breaking of day

Are the same to the miner
Who labors away

Where the demons of death
Often come by surprise

One fellow of the slate
And you're buried alive

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 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

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
It's dark as a dungeon
Way down in the mines