“The Land of the Noonday Night” Sheet Music (pdf).
“The Land of the Noonday Night” Karaoke (midi with lyrics).
Lyrics: Ernest Howard Crosby.
Tune: Eleanor Smith.
We have eyes to see like you,
In the heart of the deep, deep mine,
But there’s nothing to mark but the dreadful dark,
Where the sun can never shine.
On the banks of clammy coal,
Our lamps cast a flick’ring light
At the bottom drear of the moist black hole
In the land of the noonday night.
But our home is not like yours;
’Tis a bare, unpainted shack,
Where the raindrops pour on the shaky floor,
And the coal dust stains it black.
Not a flow’r or blade of grass
Can escape the grimy blight
For the face of our yard is seared and scarred
In the land of the noonday night.
And we labor with straining arms
For the pittance they deign to give,
And our boys must quit the school for the pit
To drudge that we all may live.
And our teeth feel the grit of the mine
In the very bread we bite,
And our inmost soul is defiled with coal
In the land of the noonday night.
Who was it made the coal?
Our God as well as theirs!
If He gave it free to you and to me,
Then, keep us out, who dares!
Let the people have their mines,
Their own by immortal right,
And good prevail under hill and dale
In the land of the noonday night.