DARK AS THE DUNGEON

(Merle Travis)



Come all you young fellers 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

'Til the blood of your veins runs as black as the coal



Where it's dark as the dungeon and damp as the dew

Where the dangers are many and the pleasures are few

Where the rain never falls and the sun never shines

It's dark as the dungeon way down in the mines



It's many a man I have seen in my day

Who lived just to labor his whole life away

Like a fiend with his dope or a drunkard his wine

A man must have lust for the lure of the mine



I hope when I'm gone and the ages do roll

My body will blacken and form into coal

Then I'll look down from the door of my Heavenly home

And pity the miner a-digging my bones



The midnight, the morning, the breaking of day

Are the same to the miner who labors away.

Where the demons of death often come by surprise,

One slip of the slate and you're buried alive.



(Note: Travis composed the last verse, and used it in some

concerts. It did not appear on his, or Ernie Ford's record)

Copyright American Music, Inc.

@mine

filename[ DARKDUNG

===DOCUMENT BOUNDARY