Come listen you fellows so young and so fine
And seek not your fortune in the dark dreary mine
It will form as a habit and seep in your soul
'Till the stream of your blood is as black as the coal

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

It's many a man I've known in my day
Who lived just to labor his young life away
Like a fiend with his dope and a 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 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

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 a-digging my bones

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