A CANARY'S TALE

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Life could be short, back in the day

hovering and singing, showing brave men the way

Monoxide and methane, the killers below,

as long as we sang, onward they'd go

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Now and again, we'd breath in the poison

our singing would stop, killer gas was the reason

The silence would warn, methane, in the air

run for your lives, a miner's nightmare

 

Nineteen eleven, our first use they found,

saving the lives, brave men underground

Treated like pets, down there at the face

sadly, however, bird and miner deceased.

 

In eighty-six, no more time at the face

modern technology, us birds would replace.

The miners we saved, cannot be numbered

our legacy, I hope, always remembered

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Copyright Arthur Cole