The Cremation of Sam McGee -- Robert Service

(Poem #698) The Cremation of Sam McGee There are strange things done in the midnight sun By the men who moil for gold; The Arctic trails have their secret tales That would make your blood run cold; The Northern Lights have seen queer sights, But the queerest they ever did see Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge I cremated Sam McGee. Now Sam McGee was from Tennessee, where the cotton blooms and blows. Why he left his home in the South to roam 'round the Pole, God only knows. He was always cold, but the land of gold seemed to hold him like a spell; Though he'd often say in his homely way that he'd "sooner live in hell". On a Christmas Day we were mushing our way over the Dawson trail. Talk of your cold! through the parka's fold it stabbed like a driven nail. If our eyes we'd close, then the lashes froze till sometimes we couldn't see; It wasn't much fun, but the only one to whimper was Sam McGee. And that very night, as we lay packed tight in our robes beneath the snow, And the dogs were fed, and the stars o'erhead were dancing heel and toe, He turned to me, and "Cap," says he, "I'll cash in this trip, I guess; And if I do, I'm asking that you won't refuse my last request." Well, he seemed so low that I couldn't say no; then he says with a sort of moan: "It's the cursed cold, and it's got right hold till I'm chilled clean through to the bone. Yet 'tain't being dead -- it's my awful dread of the icy grave that pains; So I want you to swear that, foul or fair, you'll cremate my last remains." A pal's last need is a thing to heed, so I swore I would not fail; And we started on at the streak of dawn; but God! he looked ghastly pale. He crouched on the sleigh, and he raved all day of his home in Tennessee; And before nightfall a corpse was all that was left of Sam McGee. There wasn't a breath in that land of death, and I hurried, horror-driven, With a corpse half hid that I couldn't get rid, because of a promise given; It was lashed to the sleigh, and it seemed to say: "You may tax your brawn and brains, But you promised true, and it's up to you to cremate those last remains." Now a promise made is a debt unpaid, and the trail has its own stern code. In the days to come, though my lips were dumb, in my heart how I cursed that load. In the long, long night, by the lone firelight, while the huskies, round in a ring, Howled out their woes to the homeless snows -- O God! how I loathed the thing. And every day that quiet clay seemed to heavy and heavier grow; And on I went, though the dogs were spent and the grub was getting low; The trail was bad, and I felt half mad, but I swore I would not give in; And I'd often sing to the hateful thing, and it hearkened with a grin. Till I came to the marge of Lake Lebarge, and a derelict there lay; It was jammed in the ice, but I saw in a trice it was called the "Alice May". And I looked at it, and I thought a bit, and I looked at my frozen chum; Then "Here", said I, with a sudden cry, "is my cre-ma-tor-ium." Some planks I tore from the cabin floor, and I lit the boiler fire; Some coal I found that was lying around, and I heaped the fuel higher; The flames just soared, and the furnace roared -- such a blaze you seldom see; And I burrowed a hole in the glowing coal, and I stuffed in Sam McGee. Then I made a hike, for I didn't like to hear him sizzle so; And the heavens scowled, and the huskies howled, and the wind began to blow. It was icy cold, but the hot sweat rolled down my cheeks, and I don't know why; And the greasy smoke in an inky cloak went streaking down the sky. I do not know how long in the snow I wrestled with grisly fear; But the stars came out and they danced about ere again I ventured near; I was sick with dread, but I bravely said: "I'll just take a peep inside. I guess he's cooked, and it's time I looked";. . . then the door I opened wide. And there sat Sam, looking cool and calm, in the heart of the furnace roar; And he wore a smile you could see a mile, and he said: "Please close that door. It's fine in here, but I greatly fear you'll let in the cold and storm -- Since I left Plumtree, down in Tennessee, it's the first time I've been warm." There are strange things done in the midnight sun By the men who moil for gold; The Arctic trails have their secret tales That would make your blood run cold; The Northern Lights have seen queer sights, But the queerest they ever did see Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge I cremated Sam McGee. -- Robert Service

 From "The Spell of the Yukon, and Other Verses".
 Originally published in 1916 by Barse & Co.
 Also published as "Songs of a Sourdough".

 Tokyo's in the grip of its coldest winter in several years - the perfect
opportunity for me to send this poem <grin>. Sometimes I think I know
exactly what Sam McGee felt like...

 On the poem itself I have not much to say. Heptameters always lend
themselves perfectly to balladry; there's also a touch of cheerful
bloodthirstyness about today's poem that's very reminiscent of Percy
French's "Abdul Abulbul Amir", or Gilbert's "Yarn of the 'Nancy Bell'"...

thomas.

[Links]

Sir Willam S. Gilbert, "The Yarn of the 'Nancy Bell'": poem #161

Percy French, "Abdul Abulbul Amir": poem #358

The Poet's Corner has all of Robert Service's poems online:
[broken link] http://www.geocities.com/~spanoudi/poems/poem-st.html

Service was often called 'The Kipling of the North'. My favourite Kipling is
"The Ballad of East and West": poem #67

[Biography]

 b. Jan. 16, 1874, Preston, Lancashire, Eng.
 d. Sept. 11, 1958, Lancieux, France

in full ROBERT WILLIAM SERVICE, popular verse writer called "the Canadian
Kipling" for rollicking ballads of the "frozen North," notably "The Shooting
of Dan McGrew."
Service emigrated to Canada in 1894 and, while working for the Canadian Bank
of Commerce in Victoria, B.C., was stationed for eight years in the Yukon.
He was a newspaper correspondent for the Toronto Star during the Balkan Wars
of 1912-13 and an ambulance driver and correspondent during World War I.

Service's first verse collections, Songs of a Sourdough (1907) and Ballads
of a Cheechako (1909), describing life in the Canadian north, were
enormously popular. Among his later volumes of verse are Rhymes of a Red
Cross Man (1916) and Bar Room Ballads (1940). The Trail of '98 (1910) is a
vivid novel of men and conditions in the Klondike. He also wrote two
autobiographical works, Ploughman of the Moon (1945) and Harper of Heaven
(1948). From 1912 he lived in Europe, mainly on the French Riviera.

        -- EB