| Come and listen you fellows, so young and so fine
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| And seek not your fortune in the dark, dreary mines
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| It will form as a habit and seep in your soul
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| 'Till the stream of your blood is as black as the coal
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| It’s dark as a dungeon and damp as the dew
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| Where danger is double and pleasures are few
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| Where the rain never falls and the sun never shines
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| It’s dark as a dungeon way down in the mine
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| It’s a-many a man I have seen in my day
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| Who lived just to labor his whole life away
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| Like a fiend with his dope and a drunkard his wine
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| A man will have lust for the lure of the mines
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| I hope when I’m gone and the ages shall roll
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| My body will blacken and turn into coal
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| Then I’ll look from the door of my heavenly home
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| And pity the miner a-diggin' my bones |