Iron Town

 

Millom at night was quite a sight,

With the ironworks in full swing.

The sky was aflame, from furnace and train.

As the ore was wheeled in.

 

Showers of sparks, explode in the dark,

Like a thousand shooting stars.

While the haematite boiled, scorched workers toiled.

Producing the pig-iron bars.

 

While under the sea, on bended knee,

Miners are hacking out ore.

Within pillars and stalls, they create vast halls.

Endeavouring, to search for more.

 

Then in sixty-eight, an awful fate,

Befell, this small mining town.

Jobs would be lost, at a terrible cost.

With the ironworks closing down.

 

Within half a year, they faced their fears.

Hodbarrow mines were no more.

The last shift went down deep underground.

Death to the Cumbrian ore.

 

The mines, now gone from this small town.

But the memories still live on.

The miners lost, and the jobs that its cost;

Yet pride, it still soldiers on.

 

Still, I feel proud, when heard out aloud,

I'm Millomite born and bred!

I think of the mines, of all the hard times;

And the tears, that, this town has shed.