Dark as a Dungeon

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 a-many a man I've seen in my day
Who lived just to labor his whole life away
Like a fiend with his dope and a drunkard his wine
A man will have lust for the lure of the mine
 
The midnight the morning or the middle of the day
It's the same to the miner who labors away
Where the demons of death often come by surprise
One fall of the slate and your 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 a-digging my bones

Merle Travis