Now come all you gallant
colliers
wherever you may be
Whether you work the Rhondda
or in the North Country
All you who tunnel in the rock and dirt
to earn your pay
They say your time is almost done
And that coal has had its day
We fuelled the ships upon
the sea
And the railways on the land
And a hundred thousand factories
Grew up on every hand
We gave the fire that forged
the steel
from which the tools were made
And the world we live in,
it was built upon the miners' trade
We tunneled under mountains
and beneath the salt sea waves
The slagheaps marked our victories,
the rockfalls marked our graves.
We lay in sealed -off galleries
and listened for rescue teams.
And we scrabbled at the coal face
in the lousy two -foot seams.
But the age of coal is ending,
and the new age needs new skills.
With a fuel cell and atomics,
there's another world
to build.
And the men who built the old world,
their kind will build the new.
For a world's not built by power alone,
but by men like me and you.