The Blantyre Explosion

By Clyde's bonny banks

As I sadly did wander

Among the coal slag heaps

As evening drew nigh,

I spied a fair maiden

A-weeping and wailing

Weeping and wailing

With many a sigh.

I stepped up beside her

And thus I addressed her:

"Pray tell me fair maid

Of your trouble and pain."

Sobbing and sighing,

She sadly 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

To High Blantyre he came.

The wedding was fixed

All the guests were invited

That calm summers 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 news was made known,

The hills rang with their moaning,

Three-hundred-and-ten

Young miners were killed

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 are laid to their rest.