Only Seventeen

Down in this place of endless night
By the pale blue glow of a carbide light
Where your next breath could be your last
Taken by a roof fall, or methane gas
He was just a young boy, only seventeen
With a heart filled with life and a head filled with dreams
Biding his time down in the ground
Until one night he heard that awful sound
The timbers cracked as the top came in
He the cries and prayers of some mighty men
Saying “God have mercy on our poor souls
Must we all perish for this seam of coal?”
It’s been fifty years since those lives were lost
But in a miner’s world there’s still an awful cost
No one knows for sure, but many men have seen
The pale figure of a miner, only seventeen