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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=365672" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Black Gold</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">The Dad was dour, his face was sour<br>When he came home from the pit, <br>He looked like a furnace stoker but<br>That wasn't the half of it…<br>His fists were like a couple of hams<br>And he used the blighters, too, <br>The Mam would hear his foot on the step<br>And hurry to serve his stew.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">She wore his bruises over her face, <br>Her arms and her legs and more, <br>I'd seen her body all over then<br>For I was coming-up four, <br>I'd watched the blood run down her leg<br>As she cleaned herself with a rag, <br>Whenever he'd come home roaring drunk, <br>Use Mam as a punching bag! </div><div style="margin:10px 0">My sister Else was barely ten<br>When he made her work at the pit, <br>She struggled to push a cart of coal<br>Until she was almost sick.<br>The manager was a brutal man<br>With a knotted, leather strap, <br>If Else was slow or got vertigo<br>He'd lay it across her back! </div><div style="margin:10px 0">I never heard Mam complain to him, <br>I guess that she didn't dare, <br>She'd rub some cream into Else's wounds<br>And run a brush through her hair.<br>‘It's hard, but you'll toughen up, my girl, <br>He said, as a sort of scold, <br>‘You'd better respect what we're mining here, <br>Just think of it as Black Gold! '</div><div style="margin:10px 0">‘Think of it as Black Gold, ' he'd said…<br>(The sort that gets into your pores, <br>The dust that gives you a crippled lung<br>And your skin gets covered in sores.<br>The cough that's keeping the house awake<br>When everyone needs to sleep, <br>The sulphur smell round the chimney-piece<br>As you watch your mother weep!) </div><div style="margin:10px 0">He dragged me out, and he took me in<br>When I was only eight, <br>He said, ‘Now look here, fella-me-lad, <br>It's time that you pulled your weight! '<br>They started me at tuppence a day<br>And sat me down in the shaft, <br>I had to open and close a trap<br>To help to create the draught.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The hours were long, the days were long<br>We worked a twelve hour shift, <br>It took me an hour to get to the face, <br>Clambering over the drift, <br>I didn't get time to go to school, <br>Still sign my name with an ‘x', <br>But I'm learning now at the Institute<br>Just to try for a little respect! </div><div style="margin:10px 0">When I was ten, they sent me down<br>With a pick to the old coal face, <br>Where miners hammered and banged like hell<br>And they tried to make me race, <br>Poor Else, still pushing the trucks of coal, <br>Her back had formed in a hump, <br>The boys would whistle and jeer at her<br>For her legs were like two stumps.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">New-fangled ships were coming in, <br>The ones of steel and steam, <br>‘It's only good for the working man, '<br>The Dad said: ‘Good for the team! '<br>But some of the stopes were caving in<br>The mine was in full retreat, <br>We'd pull what pillars of coal were left<br>And send them up to the street.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The Dad was working the furthest pitch<br>While Else sat crippled and old, <br>She'd ripped a tendon and looked quite lost<br>As she sat by a pillar of coal, <br>She waved me away to the further stope<br>And attacked the coal with a pick, <br>The pillar came suddenly crashing down<br>And the roof - it followed it! </div><div style="margin:10px 0">I never saw Mam cry for The Dad, <br>She cried for our Else instead, <br>‘She never had much of a life at all, <br>I'm glad the old bugger's dead! '<br>Now the years have passed, and I understand<br>That The Dad was true to his kind, <br>He never had much of a chance at all<br>And he's buried, still in the mine! </div><div style="margin:10px 0">18 June 2012</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=David+Lewis+Paget">David Lewis Paget</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=365672" data-title="Black Gold de David Lewis Paget" data-description="The Dad was dour, his face was sour
When he came home from the pit, 
He looked like a furnace stoker but
That wasn't the half of it…
His fists were like a couple of hams
And he used the blighters, too, 
The Mam would hear his foot on the step
An..."></div>
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