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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

59 comments: ( or Leave a comment )

maladina said...

Good heavens -- Robert Service??? When, as Margaret Atwood puts it,
announcing to any Brit or American that one is from Canada is greeted with
about as much interest as if one had announced that one had had mashed
potatoes for lunch?

Is Canadian now respectable?

I must dust off my mukluks.

(Come to think of it...that must sound vastly more facetious than it really
is -- honestly, we really did wear them in midwinter when I was a lad! And
played broom-ball on hockey rinks with soccer balls and sawed off curling
brooms...)

So do I now consider that "that night on the marge of Lake LaBarge I
cremated Sam McGee" and "the lady that's known as Lou" are now a part of
literate discourse, and that I don't need to confine such allusions to
communication with fellow tuque-wearers and perogy-eaters?

I thought they were considered doggerel -- but we tuque-wearers and perogy
eaters do quote them back and forth to each other...

Joy Trembley said...

i think robert william service is a great poet, yet, i dont really know if hes completely same! well, thats all i have to say! byebye

Raidersong said...

Many years ago my father was often called on to give poetry readings at
church socials etc. The Cremation of Sam McGee was one of his favorites. Reading
this again brought back many good memories.

Luvabulldog30 said...

robert service is a great poet, but I must say, this poem is quite odd! !

Jim.M.Hartman said...

This is a favorite poem of mine that was passed down through the men in my
family for generations. We didn't consider this 'great literature'
probably because of the morbid nature of the poem.... but that was the fun
of it. It started in the 1920's or 30's when my grandfather and uncle
memorized this poem so that they could 'gross out' the girls that they
knew. Mostly they used it to get a reaction out of my great grandmother
(their mom).

Jim Hartman

Hugh Rankin said...

My father, John Phillip Fahey, would recite this peom with a glint in his eye. He was born on the prairie in 1914 and ended up the Vice President of an American bank in London, England. He was a mathematical genius but he loved Sam McGee, as did we, his half Englsih/Canadian chilren, love to hear him tell the story. Lee Rankin

Tom said...

While traveling thought the Yukon, we went a number of miles out of our way to set to Lake La Barge. A peaceful lake it was in August -- so we took a medicine-bottle-full of Lake La Barge and drove down to Seattle.
My medicine bottle says that I'm a confirmed romantic.
tom hassett

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Anonymous said...

Dear Tom;

Through poetry analysis during my first semester of my BA studies I too have recently discovered the same: I am a confirmed romantic. "How unlikely!", they all said. "Ridiculous." I scowled.

I much prefer your story of confirmation.

"Of course you do...", he [the self-professed Romantic] thought.

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