End Point

Cut deep into Cornish cliff-face
Hacked and hewn by hand
Shafts shaped by shovel and pick-axe
Backs bent below the ground.

Perilous paths, secret passages
Tunnels that twist and turn
Sweltering adits with acrid airways
Dark as death underground.

Weary workers winched to surface
Profits and payrolls poor
Tin no longer a trader's treasure-trove
Empty echoes 'neath Geevor mine.