Classic Poem

By Clyde's bonny banks where I sadly did wander,
Among the pit-heaps as evening drew nigh,
I spied a fair maiden all dressed in deep mourning,
A-weeping and wailing with many a sigh.

I stepped up beside her and thus I addressed her,
‘Pray tell me, fair maiden, of your trouble and pain.’
Sobbing and sighing, at last she did 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 from High Blantyre he came.
The wedding was fixed, all the guests was 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 moaning.
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.