Hum of shaft-wheel, whirr and clamour
Of steel hammers overbeat, din down
Water-hag's slander. Greasy Rhondda
River throws about the boulders
Veils of scum to mark the ancient
Degraded union of stone and water.
Unwashed colliers by the river
Gamble for luck the pavements hide.
Kids float tins down dirty rapids.
Coal-dust rings the scruffy willows.
Circe is a drab.
She gives men what they know.
Daily to her pitch-black shaft
Her whirring wheels suck husbands out of sleep.
The enchantress of Greek mythology,  Circe , is invoked, described as a prostitute — “drab is an archaic word” — a  metaphor  for the mine and its dangers.  In the myth, Circe lived on an island where she and her followers preyed on shipwrecked sailors, had sex with them, and then metamorphised them into animals. She appears in the story of Odysseus as a temptress who lured him and his sailors to her island. 
 
 She is here presented as perilous influence, though the poet  Carol Ann Duffy  had an alternative view.
The Rhondda