SHAFT OF SONG

My thanks to Doug Hurley for emailing me this and other poems of the late Aneurin Owen.

SHAFT OF SONG. ( No 2 Pit. 1941. )

Pit bottom at the end of day
mid laughter, jokes and smiles.
Before us a trip to surface lay
Some having walked three miles.

We awaited the rider's signal sound,
With men the cage was filled,
A safety check and we're upward bound,
Then pleasantly was thrilled.

Over thirty men burst into song,
As the shaft their cage ascend.
To choirs many men belong,
Their singing now descends. "Calon lan", oh glamour's strains
Receptive ears receive.
Melodious voices shaft contains
Such splendour did achieve.

"Guileless heart with good abounding
Fairer than the lily white
Only guileless hearts keep singing
Singing day and singing night".

Carriage filled with faithful hearts
Where night is night and day is black
From bowels of the earth departs.
And sends their bounding echoes back.

Toughened miners, wondrous singing
To such joyful ears did float,
This land of song my heart fulfilling
In a place that's so remote.

At speed up shaft, the cage ascending
Singing fainter as she goes.
With hand cupped ears, we, still enjoying
Grandeur only a miner knows.

Written by Aneurin Owen of Clydach Vale. Verse five is the chorus of the hymn 'Calon Lan'

Note ;- It was not uncommon to hear spontaneous singing as Aneurin describes. On many occasions the singing has been a cruel jibe in rhyme form, shouted as the cage lifted, and completed before it
got out of earshot of the recipient, sometimes an under-manager, and sometimes the pit bottom" Traffic" ( Supervisor). The rhyme would be considered payback for highhanded treatment, usually holding
the cage on pit bottom for no apparent reason.