The Blantyre Explosion
By Clyde's bonny banks
Where I sadly did wander
Among the pit heaps
As evening drew nigh,
I spied a young woman
All dressed in deep mouming,
A-weeping and wailing
With many a sigh.
I stepped up beside her
And thus I addressed her:
"Pray tell the cause of
Your trouble and pain."
Weeping and sighing,
At last she made answer:
"Johnny Murphy, kind sir,
Was my true lover's name.
"Twenty-one years of age,
Full of youth and good looking,
To work down the mines
Of High Blantyre he came.
The wedding was fixed,
All the guests were invited
That calm summer evening
Young Johnny was slain.
The explosion was heard,
All the women and children
With pale anxious faces
They haste to the mine.
When the truth was made known,
The hills rang with their mourning,
Three-hundred-and-ten
Young miners were slain.
Now husbands and wives and sweethearts and brothers,
That Blantyre explosion they'll never forget;
And all you young miners that hear my sad story,
Shed a tear for the victims who're laid to their rest.