The Atavist -- Robert Service

(Poem #1866) The Atavist What are you doing here, Tom Thorne, on the white top-knot o' the world, Where the wind has the cut of a naked knife and the stars are rapier keen? Hugging a smudgy willow fire, deep in a lynx robe curled, You that's a lord's own son, Tom Thorne -- what does your madness mean? Go home, go home to your clubs, Tom Thorne! home to your evening dress! Home to your place of power and pride, and the feast that waits for you! Why do you linger all alone in the splendid emptiness, Scouring the Land of the Little Sticks on the trail of the caribou? Why did you fall off the Earth, Tom Thorne, out of our social ken? What did your deep damnation prove? What was your dark despair? Oh with the width of a world between, and years to the count of ten, If they cut out your heart to-night, Tom Thorne, *her* name would be graven there! And you fled afar for the thing called Peace, and you thought you would find it here, In the purple tundras vastly spread, and the mountains whitely piled; It's a weary quest and a dreary quest, but I think that the end is near; For they say that the Lord has hidden it in the secret heart of the Wild. And you know that heart as few men know, and your eyes are fey and deep, With a "something lost" come welling back from the raw, red dawn of life: With woe and pain have you greatly lain, till out of abysmal sleep The soul of the Stone Age leaps in you, alert for the ancient strife. And if you came to our feast again, with its pomp and glee and glow, I think you would sit stone-still, Tom Thorne, and see in a daze of dream, A mad sun goading to frenzied flame the glittering gems of the snow, And a monster musk-ox bulking black against the blood-red gleam. I think you would see berg-battling shores, and stammer and halt and stare, With a sudden sense of the frozen void, serene and vast and still; And the aching gleam and the hush of dream, and the track of a great white bear, And the primal lust that surged in you as you sprang to make your kill. I think you would hear the bull-moose call, and the glutted river roar; And spy the hosts of the caribou shadow the shining plain; And feel the pulse of the Silences, and stand elate once more On the verge of the yawning vastitudes that call to you in vain. For I think you are one with the stars and the sun, and the wind and the wave and the dew; And the peaks untrod that yearn to God, and the valleys undefiled; Men soar with wings, and they bridle kings, but what is it all to you, Wise in the ways of the wilderness, and strong with the strength of the Wild? You have spent your life, you have waged your strife where never we play a part; You have held the throne of the Great Unknown, you have ruled a kingdom vast: . . . . . But to-night there's a strange, new trail for you, and you go, o weary heart! To the peace and rest of the Great Unguessed ... at last, Tom Thorne, at last. -- Robert Service

Today's poem is Service doing what he does best - a searing, highly coloured
narrative of a larger-than-life character in a vivider-than-life setting,
the images far more evocative than original, and none the worse for that.
Sadly, this seems to be a form of poetry that is dying out today - the
oversaturated imagery gives it a definite dated feel - and yet, for sheer
romance, it is a style that has no substitute. It may not be "literary", it
may not unfold with layer upon layer of meaning, but all that counts for
nothing as we are caught up in the magnificent sweep and flow of the words
and images.

Speaking of Service, every time I read his poetry I realise anew just how
strongly it is defined and shaped by the Land. Service has (perhaps
inevitably) been called the Canadian Kipling, and in an earlier commentary
[Poem #781] I expanded a bit upon the similarities between their poetry; on
the other hand, if I had to put my finger on the primary difference between
them, it would be this geocentricity of Service's. Kipling's poems, while
they shared much of the same style and feel as Service's, were far more
human-focused, the foreground was almost always the People, and the Land
defined by their relationship to it. In contrast, in today's typically
Service poem, Tom Thorne has a nominal lead role, but for much of the poem
he serves merely as a device for Service to speak of his beloved Yukon
wilderness, and only thereby of the men who love and brave it.

martin

A Pot Of Tea -- Robert Service

Guest poem submitted by Zenobia Driver:

(Poem #1742) A Pot Of Tea You make it in your mess-tin by the brazier's rosy gleam; You watch it cloud, then settle amber clear; You lift it with your bay'nit, and you sniff the fragrant steam; The very breath of it is ripe with cheer. You're awful cold and dirty, and a-cursin' of your lot; You scoff the blushin' 'alf of it, so rich and rippin' 'ot; It bucks you up like anythink, just seems to touch the spot: God bless the man that first discovered Tea! Since I came out to fight in France, which ain't the other day, I think I've drunk enough to float a barge; All kinds of fancy foreign dope, from caffy and doo lay, To rum they serves you out before a charge. In back rooms of estaminays I've gurgled pints of cham; I've swilled down mugs of cider till I've felt a bloomin' dam; But 'struth! they all ain't in it with the vintage of Assam: God bless the man that first invented Tea! I think them lazy lumps o' gods wot kips on asphodel Swigs nectar that's a flavour of Oolong; I only wish them sons o' guns a-grillin' down in 'ell Could 'ave their daily ration of Suchong. Hurrah! I'm off to battle, which is 'ell and 'eaven too; And if I don't give some poor bloke a sexton's job to do, To-night, by Fritz's campfire, won't I 'ave a gorgeous brew (For fightin' mustn't interfere with Tea). To-night we'll all be tellin' of the Boches that we slew, As we drink the giddy victory in Tea. -- Robert Service

Here's a nice poem on tea. Actually I got it from Aseem who seems to be
contributing a lot to the Minstrels these days, dunno why he has not
submitted this one yet. I love tea, hence the very title of this poem grabs
my attention. Love the simple and matter-of-fact way in which the poem
announces its existence - "a pot of tea". These are my favourite lines:

 You're awful cold and dirty, and a-cursin' of your lot;
 You scoff the blushin' 'alf of it, so rich and rippin' 'ot;
 It bucks you up like anythink, just seems to touch the spot:
 God bless the man that first discovered Tea!

I just love having a warm, fragrant cup of tea when I am tired - just the
smell of the brew makes me feel better.

Zenobia.

The Bread-Knife Ballad -- Robert Service

Carrying on with the theme, here's a guest poem from Michelle Marie
WHITEHEAD

(Poem #1688) The Bread-Knife Ballad A little child was sitting upon her mother's knee and down her cheeks the bitter tears did flow; and as I sadly listened, I heard this tender plea, 'twas uttered in a voice so soft and low... Please, Mother, don't stab Father with the bread-knife. Remember 'twas a gift when you were wed. But if you must stab Father with the bread-knife, Please, Mother, use another for the bread. "Not guilty!" said the Jury, and the Judge said, "Set her free, but remember this must not occur again. Next time, you must listen to your little daughter's plea." Then all the Court did join in this refrain... Please, Mother, don't stab Father with the bread-knife. Remember 'twas a gift when you were wed. But if you must stab Father with the bread-knife, Please, Mother, use another for the bread. -- Robert Service

Martin has requested poems which we have been moved to memorise. The nursery
rhyme, "Curly Locks" which he posted is a particular favourite of mine...
along with:

  There was a little girl
  who had a little curl
  right in the middle of her forehead,
  and when she was good
  she was very very good...
  and when she was bad
  she was horrid.

I could go on quoting nursery rhymes all evening - I have memorised hundreds
:) not because I have children... I just love them for their fun and
quotability in any situation.

However, the poem I would like to offer for the minstrels archive is not a
nursery rhyme, although it shares a similar structure. It is:

Chorus from 'The Bread-Knife Ballad'
by Robert William Service

  Please, Mother, don't stab Father with the bread-knife.
  Remember 'twas a gift when you were wed.
  But if you must stab Father with the bread-knife,
  Please, Mother, use another for the bread.

That is all I ever knew of this poem, and I think it stands brilliantly on
its own. Having been started on the path, I soon found the rest of the poem.
While it has nowhere near the strength of the chorus for memorability, I
have included it for the sake of completeness.

Michelle

[Martin adds]

Michelle's poem and commentary reminded me of Thackeray's "Sorrows of Werther"
[Poem #183], which, coincidentally, I'd originally read and memorised only the
last verse of. I agree with her that the chorus of today's poem stands on its
own very well, and is far more memorable than the poem-as-a-whole.

The Rover -- Robert Service

Guest poem submitted by Jeff Huo:

With your indulgence, I would like to present the commentary first, and then
the poem:

=====

References from multiple on-line sources, available upon request.

To just one day ditch the 9-to-5 grind and drive off in pursuit of
adventure. To toss the staid, predicable, tie-and-pressed shirt routine to
the wind and go off into the unknown. Most of us have entertained those
fantasies at one time or another. Robert William Service did it.

Robert Service had started out following in his father's footsteps, working
in banking.  For years he put in his 9:30 to 4:00 at the Commercial Bank of
Scotland with diligence, earning promotions and an ever-increasing salary.
The ordinary, predictable, respectable life of the middle class professional
was what he lived. Up until the day in 1896 he resigned from his bank job,
took his carefully amassed savings, and headed out for the wild, undeveloped
Canadian frontier.

No impulsive fancy was this -- it was the culmination of many years of
aspirations and planning.  His imagination had been fired by the works of
Kipling and Stevenson and other adventurers and world travellers.  He saved
money carefully to fund the journey. He exercised to build up his physical
condition. And most of all, he developed the habits of hard work and mental
discipline necessary to succeed in such a journey. Even as he put in his
hours at the office, to an ultimate goal of leaving that ordinary office
life he worked.  And finally after years of work, he set his plans in
motion,  crossed almost halfway around the world, across the Atlantic and
then across the entire Canadian landmass, to pursue the life of adventure on
the frontier he had thought about for so long.

Over the next many years, Robert travelled from Vancouver to Seattle to San
Francisco.  He worked as a farmhand, a cow herder, a miner, a road worker,
even a handyman in a bordello.  Eventually, up to the Yukon Gold country he
found his way. And it was while up there that Robert Service, based on the
stories he heard around him and the stories he had lived, wrote the poems --
"The Cremation of Sam McGee" [Poem #698], "The Law of the Yukon" [Poem
#781], "The Shooting of Dan McGrew" [Poem #1126] and many others -- that
first made him both famous and wealthy.

By the age of thirty-nine, Robert Service had lived as much as a dozen
ordinary men. He had been end to end repeatedly across the North American
continent, from Cuba to California to the Klondike. He had braved the wild
Edmonton Trail.  He had done almost everything one could think of in the
wildernesses of the North and captured the wild spirit of those lands in
poetry.  And he had won acclaim as the unofficial poet laureate of the
Canadian high north, both by the world at large and, perhaps more
importantly, by his fellows who lived there with him.  And it was at the age
of thirty-nine, in 1913, that after half a lifetime of adventure and travel,
bouncing from mining camp to boomtown, Robert Service found both love and a
permanent home.

He had gone to Europe in 1912 as a war correspondent. While there, in 1913
he met -- and married -- a French lady named Germaine Bourgoin.  He
purchased a home at Lancieux, on the Emerald Coast of Brittany, just west of
Dinard.  Robert Service's adventures weren't quite over -- he drove an
ambulance during the fighting at Verdun, he reported from many of the
battlefield fronts of World War I, he made movies in Hollywood.  But
largely, the remaining forty-six years of his life he would spend there in
France, until he died in 1958, surrounded by family, at the home on the
ocean he came to call "Dream Haven".

And it is that context that I think frames the poem I would like to present,
"The Rover", from his collection "Rhymes of a Rolling Stone". Two parts the
poem is: the first half glorifying the wild life of adventure with nothing
to tie one down; the second half wistful for the comforts of a place to call
one's own and the love of a lady to welcome one there. Both these things
Robert Service lived; both these things Robert knew.  He had lived the wild
life of excitement.  He was later blessed with the joys of loving family and
warm home.  When one considers this poem against the narrative of the life
of the poet who wrote it, it seems almost a perfect encapsulation of all
that he felt and all that drove him: and in the very last few lines, you can
easily imagine that the poet is speaking, heartfelt, for himself -- and for
so many of us.

=====

(Poem #1638) The Rover Oh, how good it is to be Foot-loose and heart-free! Just my dog and pipe and I, underneath the vast sky; Trail to try and goal to win, white road and cool inn; Fields to lure a lad afar, clear spring and still star; Lilting feet that never tire, green dingle, fagot fire; None to hurry, none to hold, heather hill and hushed fold; Nature like a picture book, laughing leaf and bright brook; Every day a jewel bright, set serenely in the night; Every night a holy shrine, radiant for a day divine. Weathered cheek and kindly eye, let the wanderer go by. Woman-love and wistful heart, let the gipsy one depart. For the farness and the road are his glory and his goad. Oh, the lilt of youth and Spring! Eyes laugh and lips sing. Yea, but it is good to be Foot-loose and heart-free! Yet how good it is to come Home at last, home, home! On the clover swings the bee, overhead's the hale tree; Sky of turquoise gleams through, yonder glints the lake's blue. In a hammock let's swing, weary of wandering; Tired of wild, uncertain lands, strange faces, faint hands. Has the wondrous world gone cold? Am I growing old, old? Grey and weary . . . let me dream, glide on the tranquil stream. Oh, what joyous days I've had, full, fervid, gay, glad! Yet there comes a subtile change, let the stripling rove, range. From sweet roving comes sweet rest, after all, home's best. And if there's a little bit of woman-love with it, I will count my life content, God-blest and well spent. . . . Oh but it is good to be Foot-loose and heart-free! Yet how good it is to come Home at last, home, home! -- Robert Service

=====

Thank you,
Jeff.

The Smoking Frog -- Robert Service

Guest poem sent in by Dave Mueller

(Poem #1137) The Smoking Frog Three men I saw beside a bar, Regarding o'er their bottle, A frog who smoked a rank cigar They'd jammed within its throttle. A Pasha frog it must have been So big it was and bloated; And from its lips the nicotine In graceful festoon floated. And while the trio jeered and joked, As if it quite enjoyed it, Impassively it smoked and smoked, (It could not well avoid it). A ring of fire its lips were nigh Yet it seemed all unwitting; It could not spit, like you and I, Who've learned the art of spitting. It did not wink, it did not shrink, As there serene it squatted' Its eyes were clear, it did not fear The fate the Gods allotted. It squatted there with calm sublime, Amid their cruel guying; Grave as a god, and all the time It knew that it was dying. And somehow then it seemed to me These men expectorating, Were infinitely less than he, The dumb thing they were baiting. It seemed to say, despite their jokes: "This is my hour of glory. It isn't every frog that smokes: My name will live in story." Before its nose the smoke arose; The flame grew nigher, nigher; And then I saw its bright eyes close Beside that ring of fire. They turned it on its warty back, From off its bloated belly; It legs jerked out, then dangled slack; It quivered like a jelly. And then the fellows went away, Contented with their joking; But even as in death it lay, The frog continued smoking. Life's like a lighted fag, thought I; We smoke it stale; then after Death turns our belly to the sky: The Gods must have their laughter. -- Robert Service

Comment:

My favorite Robert Service poem: Without pretense, he simply, sardonically
documents three men at a bar enjoying an inconsequential diversion. But how
do we, the victim in this saga, endure our fate? Pleased, because our
importance and the glory of our death ensures that our name will live on?
Nope; Service tells us it is a 'Pasha' frog, and documents its suffering --
but, what was its name? Instead we stoically proceed to our ridiculous
destiny for the horribly mundane reason that we cannot avoid it.  In this
poem, I think more than any other, Service skewers the concept of the
benevolent Sunday-school God.

Dave

[Martin adds]

While the last verse is clearly inspired by Shakespeare's

 As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods,
 They kill us for their sport

from King Lear, I actually find Service's use of "laughter" more effective
than the bard's "sport".

The Shooting of Dan McGrew -- Robert Service

(Poem #1126) The Shooting of Dan McGrew A bunch of the boys were whooping it up in the Malamute saloon; The kid that handles the music-box was hitting a jag-time tune; Back of the bar, in a solo game, sat Dangerous Dan McGrew, And watching his luck was his light-o'-love, the lady that's known as Lou. When out of the night, which was fifty below, and into the din and the glare, There stumbled a miner fresh from the creeks, dog-dirty, and loaded for bear. He looked like a man with a foot in the grave and scarcely the strength of a louse, Yet he tilted a poke of dust on the bar, and he called for drinks for the house. There was none could place the stranger's face, though we searched ourselves for a clue; But we drank his health, and the last to drink was Dangerous Dan McGrew. There's men that somehow just grip your eyes, and hold them hard like a spell; And such was he, and he looked to me like a man who had lived in hell; With a face most hair, and the dreary stare of a dog whose day is done, As he watered the green stuff in his glass, and the drops fell one by one. Then I got to figgering who he was, and wondering what he'd do, And I turned my head -- and there watching him was the lady that's known as Lou. His eyes went rubbering round the room, and he seemed in a kind of daze, Till at last that old piano fell in the way of his wandering gaze. The rag-time kid was having a drink; there was no one else on the stool, So the stranger stumbles across the room, and flops down there like a fool. In a buckskin shirt that was glazed with dirt he sat, and I saw him sway; Then he clutched the keys with his talon hands -- my God! but that man could play. Were you ever out in the Great Alone, when the moon was awful clear, And the icy mountains hemmed you in with a silence you most could hear; With only the howl of a timber wolf, and you camped there in the cold, A half-dead thing in a stark, dead world, clean mad for the muck called gold; While high overhead, green, yellow and red, the North Lights swept in bars? -- Then you've a hunch what the music meant. . . hunger and night and the stars. And hunger not of the belly kind, that's banished with bacon and beans, But the gnawing hunger of lonely men for a home and all that it means; For a fireside far from the cares that are, four walls and a roof above; But oh! so cramful of cosy joy, and crowned with a woman's love -- A woman dearer than all the world, and true as Heaven is true -- (God! how ghastly she looks through her rouge, -- the lady that's known as Lou.) Then on a sudden the music changed, so soft that you scarce could hear; But you felt that your life had been looted clean of all that it once held dear; That someone had stolen the woman you loved; that her love was a devil's lie; That your guts were gone, and the best for you was to crawl away and die. 'Twas the crowning cry of a heart's despair, and it thrilled you through and through -- "I guess I'll make it a spread misere", said Dangerous Dan McGrew. The music almost died away ... then it burst like a pent-up flood; And it seemed to say, "Repay, repay," and my eyes were blind with blood. The thought came back of an ancient wrong, and it stung like a frozen lash, And the lust awoke to kill, to kill ... then the music stopped with a crash, And the stranger turned, and his eyes they burned in a most peculiar way; In a buckskin shirt that was glazed with dirt he sat, and I saw him sway; Then his lips went in in a kind of grin, and he spoke, and his voice was calm, And "Boys," says he, "you don't know me, and none of you care a damn; But I want to state, and my words are straight, and I'll bet my poke they're true, That one of you is a hound of hell. . .and that one is Dan McGrew." Then I ducked my head, and the lights went out, and two guns blazed in the dark, And a woman screamed, and the lights went up, and two men lay stiff and stark. Pitched on his head, and pumped full of lead, was Dangerous Dan McGrew, While the man from the creeks lay clutched to the breast of the lady that's known as Lou. These are the simple facts of the case, and I guess I ought to know. They say that the stranger was crazed with "hooch," and I'm not denying it's so. I'm not so wise as the lawyer guys, but strictly between us two -- The woman that kissed him and -- pinched his poke -- was the lady that's known as Lou. -- Robert Service

Note: 'Spread misere': also 'open misere', a bid in some whist derivatives
  involving the bidding player playing for no tricks (misere) and placing
  his cards face up on the table (spread).

As I mentioned a couple of poems ago, frontiers tend to produce some highly
vivid and colourful stories and narrative poems, and Service's tales of the
Yukon are surely among the best of the breed. An often overlooked
'character' in these tales is the land itself - Kipling's India, Paterson's
Australia, Twain's Mississippi all have an unmistakable presence that
permeates the tales and moulds and shapes their characters. Service, perhaps
more so than any of them, makes this explicit in his poems:

  Were you ever out in the Great Alone, when the moon was awful clear,
  And the icy mountains hemmed you in with a silence you most could hear;
  With only the howl of a timber wolf, and you camped there in the cold,
  A half-dead thing in a stark, dead world, clean mad for the muck called gold;
  While high overhead, green, yellow and red, the North Lights swept in bars?
--
  Then you've a hunch what the music meant. . . hunger and night and the stars.

and it is this, more than anything else, that draws me to reread them time
and again, seldom without a shiver.

Today's tale of mysterious strangers, calculating women, and sudden violence
seems perfectly natural in its setting, and Service's verse hews and shapes
it without robbing it of any of its raw intensity. Definitely an immortal
poem - perhaps even more so than the haunting "Cremation of Sam McGee".

martin

Links:

  See Poem #781 for a collection of Service-related sites - I couldn't find
  anything interesting specifically related to today's poem.

  The current theme:
    [broken link] http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/collections/58.html

The March of the Dead -- Robert Service

(Poem #980) The March of the Dead The cruel war was over -- oh, the triumph was so sweet! We watched the troops returning, through our tears; There was triumph, triumph, triumph down the scarlet glittering street, And you scarce could hear the music for the cheers. And you scarce could see the house-tops for the flags that flew between; The bells were pealing madly to the sky; And everyone was shouting for the Soldiers of the Queen, And the glory of an age was passing by. And then there came a shadow, swift and sudden, dark and drear; The bells were silent, not an echo stirred. The flags were drooping sullenly, the men forgot to cheer; We waited, and we never spoke a word. The sky grew darker, darker, till from out the gloomy rack There came a voice that checked the heart with dread: "Tear down, tear down your bunting now, and hang up sable black; They are coming -- it's the Army of the Dead." They were coming, they were coming, gaunt and ghastly, sad and slow; They were coming, all the crimson wrecks of pride; With faces seared, and cheeks red smeared, and haunting eyes of woe, And clotted holes the khaki couldn't hide. Oh, the clammy brow of anguish! the livid, foam-flecked lips! The reeling ranks of ruin swept along! The limb that trailed, the hand that failed, the bloody finger tips! And oh, the dreary rhythm of their song! "They left us on the veldt-side, but we felt we couldn't stop On this, our England's crowning festal day; We're the men of Magersfontein, we're the men of Spion Kop, Colenso -- we're the men who had to pay. We're the men who paid the blood-price. Shall the grave be all our gain? You owe us. Long and heavy is the score. Then cheer us for our glory now, and cheer us for our pain, And cheer us as ye never cheered before." The folks were white and stricken, and each tongue seemed weighted with lead; Each heart was clutched in hollow hand of ice; And every eye was staring at the horror of the dead, The pity of the men who paid the price. They were come, were come to mock us, in the first flush of our peace; Through writhing lips their teeth were all agleam; They were coming in their thousands -- oh, would they never cease! I closed my eyes, and then -- it was a dream. There was triumph, triumph, triumph down the scarlet gleaming street; The town was mad; a man was like a boy. A thousand flags were flaming where the sky and city meet; A thousand bells were thundering the joy. There was music, mirth and sunshine; but some eyes shone with regret; And while we stun with cheers our homing braves, O God, in Thy great mercy, let us nevermore forget The graves they left behind, the bitter graves. -- Robert Service

Today's poem offers an interesting perspective on war - its 'message', or,
more accurately, its burden is the complex mixture of joy and pain that
attends a victory celebration - joy for the triumph, and that the war is no
more; pain for all the lives lost. The device Service uses to bring forth
this conflict is chillingly effective; in particular, the lines

  We're the men who paid the blood-price. Shall the grave be all our gain?
  You owe us. Long and heavy is the score.
  Then cheer us for our glory now, and cheer us for our pain,
  And cheer us as ye never cheered before."

have a trenchant streak of truth swirling through the irony - true, dead men
have no need of cheers, but there's the uncomfortable realisation that the
"men who paid the blood-price" are indeed not being adequately honoured.

Unusually enough, the "it was all a dream" twist, which seldom fails to
annoy me, works very well here. The difference, I think, is that the dream
is not laughed off and dismissed - it is, for all its 'dream' nature, very
real, and as such harks back more to the tradition of revelatory dreams than
to the use of a dream as a way of writing off implausible occurrences.

The poem's rhythms, too, are highly pleasing, with the alternating long and
short lines striking just the right balance between regular and varied.
There's a nice 'run on' effect, too, with consecutive lines joining
naturally into pairs, the long line building up a tension that the short one
releases. (And while on the subject of rhythm, can someone with a print copy
of the poem confirm that the first line in verse 5 is indeed 'weighted' and
not 'weighed with lead'?)

Links:

  We've run a couple of Service's poems:
    Poem #698, "The Cremation of Sam McGee"
    Poem #781, "The Law of the Yukon"

  The latter contains further links to a biography and stuff[1]

  [1] there - that's your technical term for the day

-martin

The Law of the Yukon -- Robert Service

Back from a wonderful vacation - thanks to Thomas for covering in my
absence. And having just returned from that magical land north of the
border, here begins the long-promised Canadian theme...

(Poem #781) The Law of the Yukon This is the law of the Yukon, and ever she makes it plain: "Send not your foolish and feeble; send me your strong and your sane -- Strong for the red rage of battle; sane for I harry them sore; Send me men girt for the combat, men who are grit to the core; Swift as the panther in triumph, fierce as the bear in defeat, Sired of a bulldog parent, steeled in the furnace heat. Send me the best of your breeding, lend me your chosen ones; Them will I take to my bosom, them will I call my sons; Them will I gild with my treasure, them will I glut with my meat; But the others -- the misfits, the failures -- I trample under my feet. Dissolute, damned and despairful, crippled and palsied and slain, Ye would send me the spawn of your gutters -- Go! take back your spawn again. "Wild and wide are my borders, stern as death is my sway; From my ruthless throne I have ruled alone for a million years and a day; Hugging my mighty treasure, waiting for man to come, Till he swept like a turbid torrent, and after him swept -- the scum. The pallid pimp of the dead-line, the enervate of the pen, One by one I weeded them out, for all that I sought was -- Men. One by one I dismayed them, frighting them sore with my glooms; One by one I betrayed them unto my manifold dooms. Drowned them like rats in my rivers, starved them like curs on my plains, Rotted the flesh that was left them, poisoned the blood in their veins; Burst with my winter upon them, searing forever their sight, Lashed them with fungus-white faces, whimpering wild in the night; Staggering blind through the storm-whirl, stumbling mad through the snow, Frozen stiff in the ice-pack, brittle and bent like a bow; Featureless, formless, forsaken, scented by wolves in their flight, Left for the wind to make music through ribs that are glittering white; Gnawing the black crust of failure, searching the pit of despair, Crooking the toe in the trigger, trying to patter a prayer; Going outside with an escort, raving with lips all afoam, Writing a cheque for a million, driveling feebly of home; Lost like a louse in the burning. . .or else in the tented town Seeking a drunkard's solace, sinking and sinking down; Steeped in the slime at the bottom, dead to a decent world, Lost 'mid the human flotsam, far on the frontier hurled; In the camp at the bend of the river, with its dozen saloons aglare, Its gambling dens ariot, its gramophones all ablare; Crimped with the crimes of a city, sin-ridden and bridled with lies, In the hush of my mountained vastness, in the flush of my midnight skies. Plague-spots, yet tools of my purpose, so natheless I suffer them thrive, Crushing my Weak in their clutches, that only my Strong may survive. "But the others, the men of my mettle, the men who would 'stablish my fame Unto its ultimate issue, winning me honor, not shame; Searching my uttermost valleys, fighting each step as they go, Shooting the wrath of my rapids, scaling my ramparts of snow; Ripping the guts of my mountains, looting the beds of my creeks, Them will I take to my bosom, and speak as a mother speaks. I am the land that listens, I am the land that broods; Steeped in eternal beauty, crystalline waters and woods. Long have I waited lonely, shunned as a thing accurst, Monstrous, moody, pathetic, the last of the lands and the first; Visioning camp-fires at twilight, sad with a longing forlorn, Feeling my womb o'er-pregnant with the seed of cities unborn. Wild and wide are my borders, stern as death is my sway, And I wait for the men who will win me -- and I will not be won in a day; And I will not be won by weaklings, subtle, suave and mild, But by men with the hearts of Vikings, and the simple faith of a child; Desperate, strong and resistless, unthrottled by fear or defeat, Them will I gild with my treasure, them will I glut with my meat. "Lofty I stand from each sister land, patient and wearily wise, With the weight of a world of sadness in my quiet, passionless eyes; Dreaming alone of a people, dreaming alone of a day, When men shall not rape my riches, and curse me and go away; Making a bawd of my bounty, fouling the hand that gave -- Till I rise in my wrath and I sweep on their path and I stamp them into a grave. Dreaming of men who will bless me, of women esteeming me good, Of children born in my borders of radiant motherhood, Of cities leaping to stature, of fame like a flag unfurled, As I pour the tide of my riches in the eager lap of the world." This is the Law of the Yukon, that only the Strong shall thrive; That surely the Weak shall perish, and only the Fit survive. Dissolute, damned and despairful, crippled and palsied and slain, This is the Will of the Yukon, -- Lo, how she makes it plain! -- Robert Service

Today's choice of poet was easy - few Canadian poets are as well-known, or
as well-loved, as is Service. Picking out a poem was far harder - Service
has written a lot, and most of it is uniformly excellent; indeed, I spent a
very enjoyable couple of hours reading through some of his verse and trying
to settle on a single piece. I finally chose 'The Law of the Yukon' not
because it is his best work (I'd hate to have to pick one out), or even my
favourite (see previous parenthetical comment), but because it is nicely
representative of an aspect of his work I wanted to highlight - the way his
poems are permeated by the Yukon, the land that, regardless of subject, is
often the true protagonist of his work. This is, in fact, one of the things
I like most about his poetry, and one of the reasons I prefer poems like
today's to popular favourites like Dan McGrew.

Formwise, the most striking thing about Service's poetry is the almost
effortless mastery of metre and rhyme he displays. His work is not mere
versification, though; the perfect, flowing lines form a natural frame for
the spellbinding ballads and vivid landscapes he weaves.

Comparisons with Kipling are, of course, inevitable, and indeed, Service
himself has named Kipling as one of his influences (see the biogaphy link).
The similarities are obvious - from the emphasis on themes like the Land and
men's relationship to it, highly personal war poems from the common
soldier's point of view, and enthralling narratives, to the almost obtrusive
perfection of the verse form, Service's poems owe a definite debt to
Kipling's.

Again, like Kipling, Service wrote for the masses. This is not to say he was
not a great poet - he was. But he does seem to have eschewed abstract,
self-conscious literary tricks in favour of a more direct style
that would appeal to the common man, and excite pleasure as much as it did
admiration.

The Service Home Page (see links) emphasises the above point by means of an
obituary and the following quote from one of Service's poems:

        Ah yes, I know my brow is low
        And often wished it high.
        So that I might with rapture write
        An epic of the sky;
        A poem cast in contour vast;
        Of fabled gods and fays;
        A classic screed that few would read
        Yet nearly all would praise.

                -- 1st stanza, Prelude from Lyrics of a Low Brow

Furthermore, returning briefly to Kipling, today's poem seems to be paying a
direct tribute to 'The Law of the Jungle', which it echoes faintly while
being by no means derivative of it.

Biography:

  There's an excellent biography of Service at
  http://oh.essortment.com/klondikegoldru_rdax.htm

Links:

  A nice collection of Service's poems, and another biography:
  [broken link] http://www.inch.com/~kdka/public_html/r~service.html

  [broken link] http://www.inch.com/~kdka/public_html/servlex.html has a lexicon of some
  of the unfamiliar terms used in the poem

  [broken link] http://www.ude.net/verse/verse.html has an extensive collection of
  Service's poems, as well as links to discussions and mp3s of recitations.
  Recommended.

  Kipling's 'The Law of the Jungle' is at
  http://www.poetryloverspage.com/poets/kipling/law_of_jungle.html

  We've already run Service's best known poem, The Cremation of Sam McGee:
  poem #698

Theme and Acknowledgements:

  Thanks to Shannon West and Maladina for many helpful discussions on
  running a Canadian theme. The theme itself is highly nonspecific; I aim
  merely to cover a few of the more prominent Canadian poets. Suggestions
  and guest poems both welcome, as well as any comments on Canadian poetry
  in general (I'll postpone my own until I've run a few more examples).

-martin

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