By Flapper Press Poetry Café:
The Flapper Press Poetry Café continues a series of articles about favorite lines of poetry and the poets who wrote them. We’re reaching out to poets, writers, and lovers of poetry to submit their favorite lines of poetry and tell us why you love them.
Check out our submission guidelines and send us your favorites!
We'll feature your submission sometime this year on our site!
This week, our submission comes from Kansas City native Jill Maidhof.
From Jill Maidhof:
My favorite poetry Line of poetry comes from poet Robert W. Service and his poem "The Cremation of Sam McGee":
“ Now a promise made is a debt unpaid, and the trail has its own stern code."
Why this line matters to me:
This line reminds me of my father, who loved this poem. I also enjoy the rhythm and simplicity as well as the whimsical truth of this ballad.
Known as the “Bard of the Yukon,” Robert William Service (1874–1958) was born in Lancashire, England, and grew up and was educated in Scotland until his adventurous spirit and curiosity called him to the Yukon Wilderness in Western Canada, where he worked on Vancouver Island after the Gold Rush. These adventures informed his popular poetry and allowed him to travel widely, which further inspired his work as a writer and poet. Service’s adventurous life also led him to work as a correspondent for the Toronto Star during the Balkan Wars and as an ambulance driver during WWI in France. He even starred in a minor role alongside Marlene Dietrich in The Spoilers.
Even though Service’s work proves a challenging read when it comes to his use of ethnic slurs, his poetry and writing found wide popularity during his lifetime, and he was often compared to Rudyard Kipling. His first verse collection, Songs of a Sourdough (or Spell of the Yukon and Other Verses, 1907) was followed by Ballad of a Cheechako (1909) and Ballads of a Bohemian (1921). Service also wrote two autobiographies and six novels, and his work was adapted into numerous Hollywood film productions: My Madonna (1915), The Law of the Yukon (1920), The Roughneck (1924), Clancy of the Mounted (1933), Dangerous Dan McFoo (1939) and many more.
His most notable poetic works are “The Shooting of Dan McGrew” and “The Cremation of Sam McGee.”
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 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.
— Robert W. Service (1907)
To read more about Robert W. Service and his work, visit:
Jill Maidhof is an Air Force brat whose heart still swells at the roar of jet engines. "I was 12 years old when my dad retired. We moved to Kansas City, a city inhabited by friendly people who enjoyed something I never had—'deep roots.' The experience of being the new kid from the Air Force where I was embraced, however temporarily or superficially, as opposed to a civilian where I never penetrated inner circles among the natives, has been an influence, if not the greatest influence, on my life. I am committed to welcoming the stranger."
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