The Cremation of Sam Mcgee

Robert Service | Robert Service

[Clive]

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-eum."

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.

[headsonpikes]

Thanks.

So long as I live, I'll never forget the years I spent in the North. 50 below, the Northern lights, ice crystals from breath shimmering in rainbow colours, the crack of freezing trees...and the wonder of warmth when you come indoors with your face, feet, and hands numb from the cold.

And a thousand other wondrous things...but I wouldn't go back to live there again. ;^)

[snopercod]

I have a flying buddy who recited that poem from memory to me on his 50th wedding anniversary. (I think he was 76 at the time.)

[LiteKeeper]

Just the opposite here in Colorado Springs - Been in the 50's and 60's for the last week or so....got to 71 last week...and this is "winter."

[yankeedame]

"The Cremation of Same Mcgee" formatted as a poem. Thanks to www.robertwservice.com/verse/cremation.html

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, 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-eum."

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.

[Snowyman]

I remember one house we lived in had 2x8 rafters and when it got cold they didn't crack all night. They banged! Like a shotgun going off.

It's a cool -29c right now, heading for -35c. Forcast tomorrow, high -21c low -31c tomorrow night.

Now if we had a wind , it'd get cold....

[Entropy Squared]

There is a bar in the Yukon Territory, Dawson City maybe, where they supposedly have a "Big Toe Drink" that is a Yukon tradition. The big toe, which had been frozen off, is reputed to be pickled behind the bar and a customer can order a shooter containing the big toe.

According to the legend, some guy got too drunk and accidently swallowed the big toe. In his drunken horror at destroying a Yukon tradition he promised if another toe hadn't been acquired in one year's time he would cut off his own toe as a replacement. One year later he made good on his promise and replaced the swallowed toe with his own.

The last I've heard, the drink is still available.

[headsonpikes]

"Now if we had a wind, it'd get cold...."

;^)...right!...or an ice-fog.

I've seen -50C a few times, but the chilled to the bone coldest I've experienced was -45C with ice-fog at Ft. Mac back in '75 or '76. We were setting string lines and bracing wood-framed townhouses...nuts, I tell you, nuts!

LOL!

[flyervet]

The Sceptic

My Father Christmas passed away
When I was barely seven.
At twenty-one, alack-a-day,
I lost my hope of heaven.

Yet not in either lies the curse:
The hell of it's because
I don't know which loss hurt the worse --
My God or Santa Claus.

- Robert W. Service

[TexasBarak]

Robert Service was possibly the greatest American poet. His work on the Yukon and World War one is not for the faint of heart. Amazing stuff- I have his collected works in one volume, and while I love poetry, this is the only book of it I've ever read straight though.
In fact, after reading it, I bought several more copies and gave them away as gifts :)

[Snowyman]

Songs of a Sourdough


To be a bony feed Sourdough
You must, by Yukon Law,
Have killed a moose,
And robbed a sluice,
AND BUNKED UP WITH A SQUAW...
Alas! Sourdough I'll never be.
Oh, sad is my excuse;
My shooting's so damn bad, you see...
I've never killed a moose.


http://www.robertwservice.com/

[Clive]

Agreed.

Right now I feel colder looking out my living room window at the ice fog on Lake Ontario this morning than I ever was on the Arctic archipelago.

Of course, I am a hell of a lot older now.

[headsonpikes]

"Of course, I am a hell of a lot older now."

Me, too; but getting old's not so bad when you consider the alternative!

[rhema]

I felt the same way the last year we lived in Minnesota.

It's sunny and only 6 below this morning in the Twin Cities. . . a perfect day to attend the March for Life at the State Capitol. (I am, however, headed to Fleet Farm to buy warm boots, a bomber hat, and chopper mitts before I join my fellow pro-lifers.)

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Get a pair of Sorel boots. Both my wife and I have em. Made in Canada, or once were. They have heavy felt liners that can be removed and dried out.

[rhema]

I couldn't find Sorels (at Schuler's or Fleet Farm), so I got a Canadian brand named Kamik at Schuler's. They kept my feet nice and warm during the almost two hours of walking and standing.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

If they keep you feet warm, it was a good buy.
We lived in Minnesota 1986-2001.

[HoustonCurmudgeon]

And a thousand other wondrous things...but I wouldn't go back to live there again. ;^)

Three years in Canada, three in New York, and two in Germany. If I ever see snow again it will be the winter Olympics on TV!

[okie01]

I wanted the gold, and I sought it,

I scrabbled and mucked like a slave.

Was it famine or scurvy -- I fought it;

I hurled my youth into a grave.

I wanted the gold, and I got it --

Came out with a fortune last fall, --

Yet somehow life's not what I thought it,

And somehow the gold isn't all.


No! There's the land. (Have you seen it?)

It's the cussedest land that I know,

From the big, dizzy mountains that screen it

To the deep, deathlike valleys below.

Some say God was tired when He made it;

Some say it's a fine land to shun;

Maybe; but there's some as would trade it

For no land on earth -- and I'm one.


You come to get rich (damned good reason);

You feel like an exile at first;

You hate it like hell for a season,

And then you are worse than the worst.

It grips you like some kinds of sinning;

It twists you from foe to a friend;

It seems it's been since the beginning;

It seems it will be to the end.


I've stood in some mighty-mouthed hollow

That's plumb-full of hush to the brim;

I've watched the big, husky sun wallow

In crimson and gold, and grow dim,

Till the moon set the pearly peaks gleaming,

And the stars tumbled out, neck and crop;

And I've thought that I surely was dreaming,

With the peace o' the world piled on top.


The summer -- no sweeter was ever;

The sunshiny woods all athrill;

The grayling aleap in the river,

The bighorn asleep on the hill.

The strong life that never knows harness;

The wilds where the caribou call;

The freshness, the freedom, the farness --

O God! how I'm stuck on it all.


The winter! the brightness that blinds you,

The white land locked tight as a drum,

The cold fear that follows and finds you,

The silence that bludgeons you dumb.

The snows that are older than history,

The woods where the weird shadows slant;

The stillness, the moonlight, the mystery,

I've bade 'em good-by -- but I can't.


There's a land where the mountains are nameless,

And the rivers all run God knows where;

There are lives that are erring and aimless,

And deaths that just hang by a hair;

There are hardships that nobody reckons;

There are valleys unpeopled and still;

There's a land -- oh, it beckons and beckons,

And I want to go back -- and I will.


They're making my money diminish;

I'm sick of the taste of champagne.

Thank God! when I'm skinned to a finish

I'll pike to the Yukon again.

I'll fight -- and you bet it's no sham-fight;

It's hell! -- but I've been there before;

And it's better than this by a damsite --

So me for the Yukon once more.


There's gold, and it's haunting and haunting;

It's luring me on as of old;

Yet it isn't the gold that I'm wanting

So much as just finding the gold.

It's the great, big, broad land 'way up yonder,

It's the forests where silence has lease;

It's the beauty that thrills me with wonder,

It's the stillness that fills me with peace.

[tet68]

Ohhh, I like this one.

The Ballad of Soulful Sam
by Robert W. Service

---

You want me to tell you a story, a yarn of the firin' line,
Of our thin red kharki 'eroes, out there where the bullets whine;
Out there where the bombs are bustin', and the cannon like 'ell doors slam -
Just order another drink, boys, and I'll tell you of Soulful Sam.

Oh, Sam, he was never 'ilarious, though I've 'ad some mates as was wuz;
He 'adn't C.B. on his programme, he never was known to cuss.
For a card or a skirt or a beer-mug he 'adn't a friendly word;
But when it came down to Scriptures, say! Wasn't he just a bird!

He always 'ad tracts in his pocket, the which he would haste to present,
And though the fellers would use them in ways that they never was meant,
I used to read 'em religious, and frequent I've been impressed
By some of them bundles of 'oly dope he carried around in his vest.

For I - and oh, 'ow I shudder at the 'orror the word conveys!
'Ave been - let me whisper it 'oarsely - a gambler 'alf of me days;
A gambler, you 'ear - a gambler. It makes me wishful to weep,
And yet 'ow it's true, my brethren! - I'd rather gamble than sleep.

I've gambled the 'ole world over, from Monte Carlo to Maine;
From Dawson City to Dover, from San Francisco to Spain.
Card! They 'ave been me ruin. They've taken me pride and me pelf,
And when I'd no one to play with - why, I'd go and play by myself.

And Sam 'e would sit and watch me, as I shuffled a greasy deck,
And 'e'd say: "You're bound to Perdition," And I answer, "Git off me neck!"
And that's 'ow we came to get friendly, though buit on a different plan,
Me wot's a desprite gambler, 'im sich a good young man.

But on to me tale. Just imagine...Darkness! The battle-front!
The furious 'Uns attackin'! Us ones a-bearin' the brunt!
Me crouchin' be'ind a sandbag, tryin' 'ard to keep calm,
When I 'ears someone singin' a 'ymm toon; be'old! it is Soulful Sam.

Yes; right in the crash of the combat, in the fury of flash and flame,
'E was shootin' and singin' screnely as if 'e enjoyed the same.
And there in the 'eat of the battle, as the 'ordes of demons attacked,
He dipped down into 'is tunic, and 'e 'anded me out a tract.

The a star-shell flared, and I read it: Oh, Flee From the Wrath to Come!
Nice cheerful subject, I tell yer, when you're 'earin' the bullets 'um.
And before I 'ad time to thank 'im, just one of them bits of lead
Comes slingin' along in a 'urry, and it 'its my partner... Dead?

No, siree! not by a long sight! For it plugged 'im 'ard on the chest,
Just where 'e'd tracts for a army corps stowed away in 'is vest.
On its mission of death that bullet 'ustled along, and it caved
A 'ole in them tracts to 'is 'ide, boys - but the life o' me pal was saved.

And there as 'e showed me in triumph, and 'orror was chokin' me breath,
On came another bullet on its 'orrible mission of death;
On through the night it cavorted, seekin' its 'aven of rest,
And it zipped through a crack in the sandbags, and it walloped me bang on the breast.

Was I killed, do you ask? Oh no, boys. Why am I sittin' 'ere
Gazin' with mournful vision at a mug long empty of beer?
With a throat as dry as a - oh, thanky! I don't much mind if I do.
Beer with a dash of 'ollands, that's my particular brew.

Yes, that was a terrible moment. It 'ammered me 'ard o'er the 'eart;
It bowled me down like a nine-pin, and I looked for the gore to start;
And I saw in the flash of a moment, in that thunder of hate and strife,
Me wretched past like a pitchur - the sins of a gambler's life.

For I 'ad no tracts to save me, to thwart that mad missils's doom;
I 'ad no pious pamphlets to 'elp me cheat the tomb;
I 'ad no 'oly leaflets to baffle a bullet's aim;
I'd only - a deck of cards, boys, but...it seemed to do just the same.

---

[Eric in the Ozarks]

We moved to the Ozarks to escape snow. Today its snowing here.