The Cremation of Sam McGee

Wife and I originally from westmoreland, Irwin & Calumet. We live 110 miles downriver from dawson and travel the yukon alot. Many old ghost towns from gold rush days; little more than 100 years and almost completely gone from landscape. Towns of 2000-5000 men every 20 miles or so and all that remains is the overgrowth of brush where town site once stood. Our community which was once the territorial capital of 10,000, now 100 whites, 30 Indians. I enjoy scrounging around these old sites and thinking about the people not all that far back.

Alot of the locals still operate dredges, less regulation along with less people. You have to haul everything in when trails are hard by snowmachine. When I get 75 miles back these old trails, cold, wet, and tired; and think about how tough the people were back then; I wonder about our future. Wasn't any social network, quite a few factors came into play concerning ones survival and I believe that generally stimulated the best in people. Different today.

I temper that thought in anticipation of Pens/Blkhawks game I will be watching later today on Center Ice HD. Naw, no going back for me either; luv that big Samsung as much as country up here too;;; at least in February that is.

"...a promise made is a debt unpaid..."

Bringing tears to my eyes with this one, Clive.

My grandfather used to recite this to me when I was a little girl and I loved it.

Thank you.

When we had some houseguests once for a hunting season, one of my husband's friends recited this poem to all of us, by the light of a fire, late at night.

It rose from him in the midst of conversation and I can tell you, I never heard Richard Burton or Olivier deliver lines with as much emotion as he did that night.

Good stuff!

Robert Service
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 thestrength 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 cozy 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;
'Twas the crowning cry of a heart's despair, and it thrilled you through and though -
"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.

Rudyard Kipling
The Ballad of Boh Da Thone
1888

Burma War, 1883-85

This is the ballad of Boh Da Thone,
Erst a Pretender to Theebaw's throne,
Who harried the District of Alalone:
How he met with his fate and the V.P.P.
At the hand of Harendra Mukerji,
Senior Gomashta, G.B.T.

Boh Da Thone was a warrior bold:
His sword and his rifle were bossed with gold,

And the Peacock Banner his henchmen bore
Was stiff with bullion, but stiffer with gore.

He shot at the strong and he slashed at the weak
From the Salween scrub to the Chindwin teak:

He crucified noble, he scarified mean,
He filled old ladies with kerosene:

While over the water the papers cried,
"The patriot fights for his countryside!"

But little they cared for the Native Press,
The worn white soldiers in khaki dress,

Who tramped in the jungle and camped in the byre,
Who died in the swamp and were tombed in the mire,

Who gave up their lives at the Queen's Command,
For the Pride of their Race and the Peace of the Land.

Now, first of the foemen of Boh Da Thone
Was Captain O'Neil of the Black Tyrone,

And his was a Company, seventy strong,
Who hustled that dissolute Chief along.

There were lads from Galway and Louth and Meath
Who went to their death with a joke in their teeth,

And worshipped with fluency, fervour, and zeal
The mud on the boots of "Crook" O'Neil.

But ever a blight on their labours lay,
And ever their quarry would vanish away,

Till the sun-dried boys of the Black Tyrone
Took a brotherly interest in Boh Da Thone,

And, sooth, if pursuit in possession ends,
The Boh and his trackers were best of friends.

The word of a scout - a march by night -
A rush through the mist - a scattering fight -

A volley from cover - a corpse in the clearing -
A glimpse of a loin-cloth and heavy jade earring -

The flare of a village - the tally of slain -
And...the Boh was abroad on the raid again!

They cursed their luck as the Irish will,
They gave him credit for cunning and skill,

They buried their dead, they bolted their beef,
And started anew on the track of the thief,

Till, in place of the "Kalends of Greece," men said,
"When Crook and his darlings come back with the head."

They had hunted the Boh from the hills to the plain -
He doubled and broke for the hills again:

They had crippled his power for rapine and raid,
They had routed him out of his pet stockade,

And at last, they came, when the Daystar tired,
To a camp deserted - a village fired.

A black cross blistered the morning-gold,
And the body upon it was stark and cold.

The wind of the dawn went merrily past,
The high grass bowed her plumes to the blast,

And out of the grass, on a sudden, broke
A spirtle of fire, a whorl of smoke -

And Captain O'Neil of the Black Tyrone
Was blessed with a slug in the ulnar-bone -
The gift of his enemy Boh Da Thone.

(Now a slug that is hammered from telegraph-wire
Is a thorn in the flesh and a rankling fire.)

The shot-wound festered - as shot-wounds may
In a steaming barrack in Mandalay.

The left arm throbbed, and the Captain swore,
"I'd like to be after the Boh once more!"

The fever held him - the Captain said,
"I'd give a hundred to look at his head!"

The hospital punkahs creaked and whirred,
But Babu Harendra (Gomashta) heard.

He thought of the cane-break, green and dank,
That girdled his home by the Dacca tank.

He thought of his wife and his High-School son,
He thought - but abandoned the thought - of a gun.

His sleep was broken by visions dread
Of a shining Boh with a silver head.

He kept his counsel and went his way,
And swindled the cartmen of half their pay.

And the months went on, as the worst must do,
And the Boh returned to the raid anew.

But the Captain had quitted the long-drawn strife,
And in far Simoorie had taken a wife;

And she was a damsel of delicate mould,
With hair like the sunshine and heart of gold,

And little she knew the arms that embraced
Had cloven a man from the brow to the waist:

And little she knew that the loving lips
Had ordered a quivering life's eclipse,

Or the eye that lit at her lightest breath
Had glared unawed at the Gates of Death.

(For these be matters a man would hide,
As a general rule, from an innocent Bride.)

And little the Captain thought of the past,
And, of all men, Babu Harendra last.

But slow, in the sludge of the Kathun road,
The Government Bullock Train toted its load.

Speckless and spotless and shining with ghi,
In the rearmost car sat the Babu-jee;

And ever a phantom before him fled
Of a scowling Boh with a silver head.

Then the lead-cart stuck, though the coolies slaved,
And the cartmen flogged and the escort raved,

And out of the jungle, with yells and squeals,
Pranced Boh Da Thone, and his gang at his heels!

The belching blunderbuss answered back
The Snider's snarl and the carbine crack,

And the blithe revolver began to sing
To the blade that twanged on the locking-ring,

And the brown flesh blued where the bayonet kissed,
As the steel shot back with a wrench and a twist,

And the great white oxen with onyx eyes
Watched the souls of the dead arise,

And over the smoke of the fusillade
The Peacock Banner staggered and swayed.

The Babu shook at the horrible sight,
And girded his ponderous loins for flight,

But Fate had ordained that the Boh should start
On a lone-hand raid of the rearmost cart,

And out of that cart, with a bellow of woe,
The Babu fell - flat on top of the Boh!

For years had Harendra served the State,
To the growth of his purse and the girth of his pet.

There were twenty stone, as the tally-man knows,
On the broad of the chest of this best of Bohs.

And twenty stone from a height discharged
Are bad for a Boh with a spleen enlarged.

Oh, short was the struggle - severe was the shock -
He dropped like a bullock - he lay like a block;

And the Babu above him, convulsed with fear,
Heard the labouring life-breath hissed out in his ear.

And thus in a fashion undignified
The princely pest of the Chindwin died.

Turn now to Simoorie, where, all at his ease,
The Captain is petting the Bride on his knees,

Where the whit of the bullet, the wounded man's scream
Are mixed as the mist of some devilish dream -

Forgotten, forgotten the sweat of the shambles
Where the hill-daisy blooms and the grey monkey gambols,

From the sword-belt set free and released from the steel,
The Peace of the Lord is on Captain O'Neil!

Up the hill to Simoorie - most patient of drudges -
The bags on his shoulder, the mail-runner trudges.

"For Captain O'Neil Sahib. One hundred and ten
"Rupees to collect on delivery."

Then
(Their breakfast was stopped while the screw-jack and hammer
Tore wax-cloth, split teak-wood, and chipped out the dammer,)

Open-eyed, open-mouthed, on the napery's snow,
With a crash and a thud, rolled - the Head of the Boh!

And gummed to the scalp was a letter which ran:
"In Fielding Force Service.
"Encampment,
"10th Jan.

"Dear Sir, - I have honour to send, as you said,
For final approval (see under) Boh's Head;

"Was took by myself in most bloody affair.
By High Education brought pressure to bear.

Now violate Liberty, time being bad,
To mail V.P.P. (rupees hundred). Please add

"Whatever Your Honour can pass. Price of Blood
"Much cheap at one hundred, and children want food.

"So trusting Your Honour will somewhat retain
"True love and affection for Govt. Bullock Train,

"And show awful kindness to satisfy me,
"I am,
"Graceful Master,
"Your
"H. Mukerji."

As the rabbit is drawn to the rattlesnake's power,
As the smoker's eye fills at the opium hour,

As a horse reaches up to the manger above,
As the waiting ear yearns for the whisper of love,

From the arms of the Bride, iron-visaged and slow,
The Captain bent down to the Head of the Boh.

And e'en as he looked on the Thing where It lay
'Twixt the winking new spoons and the napkins' array,

The freed mind fled back to the long-ago days -
The hand-to-hand scuffle - the smoke and the blaze -

The forced march at night and the quick rush at dawn -
The banjo at twilight, the burial ere morn -

The stench of the marshes - the raw, piercing smell
When the overhand stabbing-cut silenced the yell -

The oaths of his Irish that surged when they stood
Where the black crosses hung o'er the Kuttamow flood.

As a derelict ship drifts away with the tide
The Captain went out on the Past from his Bride,

Back, back, through the springs to the chill of the year,
When he hunted the Boh from Maloon to Tsaleer.

As the shape of a corpse dimmers up through deep water,
In his eye lit the passionless passion of slaughter,

And men who had fought with O'Neil for the life
Had gazed on his face with less dread than his wife.

For she who had held him so long could not hold him -
Though a four-month Eternity should have controlled him! -

But watched the twin Terror - the head turned to head -
The scowling, scarred Black, and the flushed savage Red -
The spirit that changed from her knowing and flew to
Some grim hidden Past she had never a clue to.

But It knew as It grinned, for he touched it unfearing,
And muttered aloud "So you kept that jade earring!"

Then nodded, and kindly, as friend nods to friend,
"Old man, you fought well, but you lost in the end."

The visions departed, and Shame followed Passion:
"He took what I said in this horrible fashion?

"I'll write to Harendra!' with language unsainted
The Captain came back to the Bride... who had fainted.

And this is a fiction? No. Go to Simoorie
And look at their baby, a twelve-month old Houri,

A pert little, Irish-eyed Kathleen Mavournin -
She's always about on the Mall of a mornin' -

And you'll see, if her right shoulder-strap is displaced,
This: Gules upon argent, a Boh's Head, erased!

Oliver Wendell Holmes
The Deacon's Masterpiece

Have you heard of the wonderful one-hoss shay,
That was built in such a logical way
It ran a hundred years to a day,
And then of a sudden it -- ah, but stay,
I'll tell you what happened without delay,
Scaring the parson into fits,
Frightening people out of their wits, --
Have you ever heard of that, I say?

Seventeen hundred and fifty-five.
Georgius Secundus was then alive, --
Snuffy old drone from the German hive.
That was the year when Lisbon-town
Saw the earth open and gulp her down,
And Braddock's army was done so brown,
Left without a scalp to its crown.
It was on that terrible Earthquake-day
That the Deacon finished the one-hoss shay.

Now in building of shaises, I tell you what,
There is always a weakest spot, --
In hub, tire, felloe, in spring or thill,
In pannel or crossbar, or floor, or sill,
In screw, bolt, throughbrace, -- lurking still,
Find it somewhere you must and will, --
Above or below, or within or without, --
And that's the reason, beyond a doubt,
That a chaise breaks down, but doesn't wear out.

But the Deacon swore (as deacons do,
With an "I dew vum," or an "I tell yeou")
He would build one shay to beat the taown
'n' the keounty 'n' all the kentry raoun';
It should be so built that it couldn' break daown:
"Fer," said the Deacon, "'t's mighty plain
Thut the weakes' place mus' stan' the strain;
'n' the way t' fix it, uz I maintain, is only jest
'T' make that place uz strong uz the rest."

So the Deacon inquired of the village folk
Where he could find the strongest oak,
That couldn't be split nor bent nor broke, --
That was for spokes and floor and sills;
He sent for lancewood to make the thills;
The crossbars were ash, from the the straightest trees
The pannels of whitewood, that cuts like cheese,
But lasts like iron for things like these;

The hubs of logs from the "Settler's ellum," --
Last of its timber, -- they couldn't sell 'em,
Never no axe had seen their chips,
And the wedges flew from between their lips,
Their blunt ends frizzled like celery-tips;
Step and prop-iron, bolt and screw,
Spring, tire, axle, and linchpin too,
Steel of the finest, bright and blue;
Throughbrace bison-skin, thick and wide;
Boot, top, dasher, from tough old hide
Found in the pit when the tanner died.
That was the way he "put her through,"
"There!" said the Deacon, "naow she'll dew!"

Do! I tell you, I rather guess
She was a wonder, and nothing less!
Colts grew horses, beards turned gray,
Deacon and deaconess dropped away,
Children and grandchildren -- where were they?
But there stood the stout old one-hoss shay
As fresh as on Lisbon-earthquake-day!

EIGHTEEN HUNDRED; -- it came and found
The Deacon's masterpiece strong and sound.
Eighteen hindred increased by ten; --
"Hahnsum kerridge" they called it then.
Eighteen hundred and twenty came; --
Running as usual; much the same.
Thirty and forty at last arive,
And then come fifty and FIFTY-FIVE.

Little of of all we value here
Wakes on the morn of its hundredth year
Without both feeling and looking queer.
In fact, there's nothing that keeps its youth,
So far as I know, but a tree and truth.
(This is a moral that runs at large;
Take it. -- You're welcome. -- No extra charge.)

FIRST OF NOVEMBER, -- the Earthquake-day, --
There are traces of age in the one-hoss shay,
A general flavor of mild decay,
But nothing local, as one may say.
There couldn't be, -- for the Deacon's art
Had made it so like in every part
That there wasn't a chance for one to start.
For the wheels were just as strong as the thills
And the floor was just as strong as the sills,
And the panels just as strong as the floor,
And the whippletree neither less or more,
And the back-crossbar as strong as the fore,
And the spring and axle and hub encore.
And yet, as a whole, it is past a doubt
In another hour it will be worn out!

First of November, fifty-five!
This morning the parson takes a drive.
Now, small boys get out of the way!
Here comes the wonderful one-hoss shay,
Drawn by a rat-tailed, ewe-necked bay.
"Huddup!" said the parson. -- Off went they.

The parson was working his Sunday's text, --
Had got to fifthly, and stopped perplexed
At what the -- Moses -- was coming next.
All at once the horse stood still,
Close by the meet'n'-house on the hill.
First a shiver, and then a thrill,
Then something decidedly like a spill, --
And the parson was sitting upon a rock,
At half past nine by the meet'n'-house clock, --
Just the hour of the earthquake shock!

What do you think the parson found,
When he got up and stared around?
The poor old chaise in a heap or mound,
As if it had been to the mill and ground!
You see, of course, if you're not a dunce,
How it went to pieces all at once, --
All at once, and nothing first, --
Just as bubbles do when they burst.

End of the wonderful one-hoss shay.
Logic is logic. That's all I say.

Author Unknown
Bury Me With Soldiers

I've played a lot of roles in life; I've met a lot of men.
I've done a lot of things I'd like to think I wouldn't do again.
And though I'm young, I'm old enough to know someday I'll die
And to think about what lies beyond; beside whom I would lie.
Perhaps it doesn't matter much; still if I had my choice,
I'd want a grave 'amongst Soldiers when at last death quells my voice.
I'm sick of the hypocrisy of lectures of the wise.
I'll take the man, with all the flaws, who goes, though scared, and dies.
The troops I knew were commonplace, they didn't want the war;
They fought because their fathers, and their fathers, had before.
They cursed and killed and wept – God knows they're easy to deride.
But bury me with men like these; they faced the guns and died.
It's funny when you think of it, the way we got along.
We'd come from different worlds to live in one where no one can belong.
I didn't even like them all; I'm sure they'd all agree.
Yet I would give my life for them, I know some did for me.
So bury me with soldiers, please, though much maligned they be;
Yes, bury me with soldiers, for I miss their company.

John Masefield
Sea Fever

I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,
And a gray mist on the sea's face, and a gray dawn breaking.

I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull's way and the whale's way, where the wind's like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.

Hey....that's been on my profile page for some time now...Put it back!

I've often thought that a true measure of tolerance is an agnostic who can still tear up at these words.

MY MADONNA
by
Robert William Service

I hailed me a woman from the street,
Shameless, but, oh, so fair!
I bade her sit in the model's seat
And I painted her sitting there.

I hid all trace of her heart unclean;
I painted a babe at her breast;
I painted her as she might have been
If the Worst had been the Best.

She laughed at my picture and went away.
Then came, with a knowing nod,
A connoisseur, and I heard him say;
"'Tis Mary, the Mother of God."

So I painted a halo round her hair,
And I sold her and took my fee,
And she hangs in the church of Saint Hillaire,
Where you and all may see.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Ulysses

It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Matched with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
I cannot rest from travel; I will drink
Life to the lees. All times I have enjoyed
Greatly, have suffered greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone; on shore and when
Through scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vexed the dim sea. I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known - cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honored of them all ©©
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough
Gleams that untraveled world whose margin fades
Forever and forever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!
As though to breathe were life! Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains; but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this grey spirit yearing in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.
This is my son, mine own Telemachus,
To whom I leave the scepter and the isle -
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfill
This labour, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and through soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centered in the shpere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods,
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.
There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail;
There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners
Souls that have toiled, and wrought, and thought with me -
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads - you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honour and his toil.
Death closes all; but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks;
The long day wanes; the slow moon climbs; the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come my friends
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down;
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Though much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are -
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

Lewis Carroll
You Are Old, Father William

"You are old, father William," the young man said,
"And your hair has become very white;
And yet you incessantly stand on your head--
Do you think, at your age, it is right?"

"In my youth," father William replied to his son,
"I feared it might injure the brain;
But, now that I'm perfectly sure I have none,
Why, I do it again and again."

"You are old," said the youth, "as I mentioned before,
And you have grown most uncommonly fat;
Yet you turned a back-somersault in at the door--
Pray what is the reason for that?"

"In my youth," said the sage, as he shook his grey locks,
"I kept all my limbs very supple
By the use of this ointment - one shilling a box--
Allow me to sell you a couple?"

"You are old," said the youth, "and your jaws are too weak
For anything tougher than suet;
Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak--
Pray, how did you manage to do it?"

"In my youth," said his father, "I took to the law,
And argued each case with my wife;
And the muscular strength, which it gave to my jaw,
Has lasted the rest of my life."

"You are old," said the youth, "one would hardly suppose
That your eye was as steady as ever;
Yet you balanced an eel on the end of your nose--
What made you so awfully clever?"

"I have answered three questions, and that is enough,"
Said his father. "Don't give yourself airs!
Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff?
Be off, or I'll kick you down stairs.

Dawson City. Great place. Spent a week there last summer
and really enjoyed the drive to the mountain top for the view.

Hi LIConFem,

That poem brings back great memories! My Dad and I deer hunt together and every year, around the campfire, he recites "The Cremation of Sam McGee". He memorized it in High School and still remembers it more than 50 years later!

Brian

I've loved that poem since I was a boy of 8 years old.

"He memorized it in High School and still remembers it more than 50 years later! "

Funny, my dad made me memorize The Jabberwock in kindergarten, and I still remember it (< redacted > years later)! Dad also used to recite "The Wild Ride in the Tilt Cart" and "The Highwayman".

SAM MAGEE sung by Johnny Horton on "The Spectacular Johnny Horton"
(Jimmie Driftwood) « © '59 Warden Music, BMI »
There's a valley by the ol' North Pold
Where ol' Sam Magee died in search of gold
Where ever I wander in memories
I see the smoke from the pipe of Sam Magee
(He sees the smoke from the pipe of Sam Magee)

We had wandered way up there above the Klondike
Where we found the mighty mountain made of gold
There old Sam he got sick and made me promise
That if he died I wouldn't leave him in that cold
(That if he died he wouldn't leave him in that cold)

The next morning he was cold and stiff and lifeless
So I dragged him forty days upon upon my sled
Till I found a final driftwood near the valley
It was there I got the notion in my head
(It was there he got the notion in his head)

I took out my matches and I builded a fire
And I laid old Sam upon the funeral pyre
He sat up a grinnin' with his pipe in his mouth
He sang ho ho this is mighty light of south
(He sang ho ho this is mighty light of south)
[ banjo ]

The flames around him had a heavenly glow
And the northern lights were just one big rainbow
He sat there a grinnin' with his pipe in his mouth
He sang ho ho this is mighty light of south
(He sang ho ho this is mighty light of south)

Brings back memories of Franklyn MacCormack and the All Night Show on WGN. Did you ever hear his HOW DO I LOVE THEE" and other readings?