They lie beneath the stone and beating sea—six hundred fathoms deep;
The last “shift” spent, their last “tub” filled; they rest in death's long sleep.

Their “tally-checks” are “handed in”; they have made their last “trip down,”
No more they'll haste to “catch” their “cage” at buzzer's warning sound.

No monuments to mark their graves; no crapings drape their biers;
Their mausoleums are orphans' cries, their craping, widows' tears.

No pageants gather from afar as for a nation's chief;
The flaming gas their funeral scene; their pomp—their comrades' grief.

No minute guns to sound “good-bye,” no scurrying to and fro;
Their booming guns the gas flame's roar, in a coal seam, down below.

No massed bands render martial sound, or play with sad refrain;
No martial sounds or services they'll ever need again.

No panegyrics to their lives, no catafalque august;
Their lives pertained to lowliness, their tomb—the coal's black dust

No flags float from black-draped mast to mark their passing by,
For they did naught but work to live; to work and then to die.

No promulgated holiday to give the nation's pause;
They were but pawns in life's rough game to move in humble cause.