Sago Mine

As stubborn dark begins to yield to dawn,
I'm getting up and turning on a light.
No time for sleeping now, it's almost morn.

It might as well be middle of the night,
I banish darkness with unthinking ease.
I'm getting up and turning on a light.

We turn night into day, just as we please.
Our furnaces are fed with streams of coal.
I banish darkness with unthinking ease.

The cost is paid by laboring human souls.
From endless dark beneath Virginia clay,
Our furnaces are fed with streams of coal.

The switch is broken; I can't find the day.
Twelve men are trapped-- oh God, I hear them screaming--
from endless dark beneath Virginia clay.

O God, please wake me from this awful dreaming.
In endless dark that never yields to dawn
twelve men are trapped... there's no more screaming.
They're sleeping now, it's time for us to mourn.