Come and gather round,
friends,
and I'll tell you a tale
Of when the red iron our pits run a-plantin'
Let the cardboard-filled windows and old men on the benches
Tell you now that the whole town is empty
In the north end of town my own children have
grown Well, I was raised on the other
In the wee hours of youth my mother took
sick And I was brought up by my brother
Oh the iron ore poured as the years passed the door
The drag lines and shovels they was a-hummin'
Till one day my brother failed to come home
The same as my father before him
Through a long winter's wait from the window
I watched My friends they couldn't have been kinder
And my schooling was cut as I quit
in the spring To marry John Thomas,
a miner
Oh the years passed again and the giving was
good With a lunch bucket filled every season
But with three babies born the work was cut
down To half a day's shift with no reason
Then the shaft was soon shut and more work was cut
And the fire in the arret felt frozen Till a man came to speak
And he said in one week that number eleven was closing
They say in the east they are paying too much
They say that your ore ain't worth digging
That it's much cheaper down in the South American towns
Where the miners work almost for nothing
So the mining gates locked and the red iron rotted
And the room smelled heavy from drinking
And the sad silence song made the hour twice
as long
As I waited for the sun to go sinking
I lived by the window as he talked to himself
The silence of tongues it was building
Till one morning's wake the bed it was bare
And I was left alone with three children
The summer is gone and the ground's getting cold
The stars one by one they're folding My
children will go as soon as they grow
For there ain't nothing here now to hold them