This is a wonderful poem. It was one of my dear Dad’s favourites and he knew it by heart.
Robert Service was a Scottish-Canadian poet, and is often known as ‘the Bard of the Yukon’. He was born in England, of a Scottish family, and worked as a bank clerk. When his bank sent him to the Yukon, he was hugely inspired by tales of the Klondike gold rush and wrote two poems which made him famous – The Cremation of Sam McGee and The Shooting of Dan McGrew. He followed these up with other poems in a similar vein and they all enjoyed amazing sales. In fact, he made so much money he was able to go and live on the French Riviera. He’d always loved writing poetry and is said to have composed his first verse on his 6th birthday. He was educated mainly in Glasgow. When young, he had had dreams of becoming a cowboy, but he also read lots of poetry and later used some of Kipling’s rhythms in his own verse (he insisted that what he wrote was “verse, not poetry”. After writing this poem, Service sent it to his father so he could arrange to have a few copies printed which would make nice gifts for friends. Instead, Service gave it to a publisher who recognised its power. Evidently the men working in the printing house loved reciting it as they worked.
The Cremation of Sam McGee was first published in the 1907 volume Songs of a Sourdough (a ‘sourdough’ is a resident of the Yukon). Service had heard a story of a man who’d had trouble burying his friend in the frozen wastes and so cremated him in the firebox of a steamer – he turned that tale into a comic, yet also chilling poem. Poor Sam has travelled to the Yukon from Plumtree, Tennessee (there is no actual town of that name), and feels he will never be warm again. As he nears death, he asks his friend Cap to make sure his body is cremated.
The poem rapidly became a part of Canadian literature. It was used to illustrate a postage stamp in 1976, it was regularly recited around campfires, it has been adapted by musicians, and it drew many tourists to the Yukon.
I’d love to go and see Lake Leberge (Service altered the spelling from Leberge to Lebarge, so it would rhyme with ‘marge’), but suspect I’d share Sam’s longing for warmth as its waters are always extremely cold.
The poem was recorded by Johnny Cash who reads it superbly.
And here’s the poem in printed form, but I think it was made to be listened to, rather than read from a page, so please make sure you listen to Johnny Cash.
The Cremation of Sam McGee by Robert Service
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 cursèd 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.
Did you enjoy this poem? Let me know by leaving a comment.
Selected links for relevant websites, books, movies, videos, and more. Some of these links lead to protected content on this website, learn more about that here.
Christine Stevenson
Johnny Cash reading that poem: perfect!