Songs of the Sea and Lays of the Land

by Charles Godfrey Leland

CARRYING COALS

In the gloomsome abysses where darkness is kept,

And the spirit of silence for ages has slept,

In the great shaft of Pottsville, way down in the hole,

There came seven parties, all dealers in coal;

But they never had been in that chasm before,

Nor had the sensation of darkness all o’er,

Which so greatly expandeth the soul.

And one of ’em said, “It’s an awful delight

To be infinite deep into no end of night,