"Dark As A Dungeon" lyrics

Come listen you fellers, so young and so fine
And seek not your fortune in the dark dreary mines
It'll 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 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 have known in my day
Who live just to labor his young life away
Where the demons of death often come by surprise
One fall of a slate and you're buried alive

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 digging my bones

It's dark as a dungeon and damp as the dew
Where danger is double and pleasures are few
Where the rain never falls and the sun never shines
It's dark as a dungeon way down in the mines