In the town of Spring
Hill,
Nova Scotia,
Down in the dark of the Cumberland mine,
There's blood and the coal
and the miners lie
In the roads that never
saw sun nor sky,
Roads that never
saw sun nor sky.
In the town of Spring Hill
you don't sleep easy.
Often the earth will tremble and roll.
When the earth is restless,
miners die.
Bone and blood is the price of coal.
Bone and blood is the price of coal.
In the town of Spring Hill,
Nova Scotia,
Late in the year of fifty -eight,
Gay still comes and the sun still shines,
But it's dark as the grave
in the Cumberland mine.
Dark as the grave in the
Cumberland mine.
Down at the coal face,
miners work in
The rattle of the belts and
the cutter's blade.
Rumble of rock and the walls close round
The living and the dead
men two miles down.
Flipping and the dead man
two miles down.
Twelve men lay two miles
from the pitch shaft.
Twelve men lay in the dark and sang
Long hot days in a minus two.
It was three feet high and
a hundred long.
Three feet high and a hundred long
Three days passed
and the lamps gave out
And Caleb rushed and he up and said
There's no more water,
nor light, nor bread
So we'll live on songs and hope instead
Live on songs and hope instead.
Listen for the shouts
of the bare -faced miners,
Listen through the rubble
for a rescue team,
Six hundred feet of coal and slag,
Hope imprisoned in a three -foot seam,
Hope imprisoned in
a three -foot seam
Eight days passed and
some were rescued
Leaving the dead to lie alone
Through all their lives they dug a grave
Two miles of earth for a
marking stone
Two miles of earth for a marking stone