Poetry Journal #1 - The Cremation of Sam McGee

The poem that I chose is called The Cremation of Sam McGee by Robert W. 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'er head 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 col, and it's got right hold till I"m chilled
clean through to the bone.
Yet 't ain'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 sword 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 hearth 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 that 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 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.

I can relate to this poem through Sam's desire to be warm. When I lived in Ottawa I delivered flyers as a part-time job 3 days a week. Ottawa can have some extreme weather, especially in the winter, and I've experienced temperatures as low as -40C. When you spend 2-3 hours outside, delivering flyers (which sometimes requires you to expose your fingers) in extremely low temperatures, all you can think about is 'keep going'. Your clothes are hard due to being frozen, the wagon gets stuck moving through the snow that is constantly falling around you, your fingers feel hot because they are so cold. Your breath is viable all-around you and your ears threaten to fall off. You just keep gritting your teeth and picturing yourself warm, beside the fire, covered in blankets, with a cup of hot chocolate. When you finally do get home, you can barely feel any part of your body. You are numb and chilled to the bone. You do everything you can to get warm, take a steaming shower, put on several layers of clothing, sit by the fire, eat hot food, and drink hot drink. But still, you do not feel warm. This is where I feel I can relate to Sam. He was always cold and could do nothing about it, he knew that the only way for him to truly be content was to go into the hottest thing he knew, a furnace. So therefore he knew he had to get his friend to promise to cremate his body following his death, for he had to get warm.

The Cremation of Sam McGee is a free verse poem with 15 stanzas. It is about a man from Tennessee who is living in the Arctic and is always cold. He is deathly afraid of being buried in the ice in "an icy tomb" and so his dying wish is to have his remains cremated. He wants nothing more then to be warm, once and for all. One of the final lines says: "Since I left Plumtree, down in Tennessee, it's the first time I've been warm." Sam says this as he is speaking to the narrator from inside the furnace and he is finally happy. The author uses a lot of rhyme, but it isn't necessarliy have a pattern (ex. ACBD), the rhymes are common but spaced out, and by not commiting to a pattern, the author allows his poem to make clear sense, as oppose to others which focus on rhyming first and being readable and comprehendable second. A good example of this is the line: "Why he left his home in the South to roam 'round the Pole". It doesn't rhyme with any other line and there is no rhyme in the line, and yet it makes better sense of the poem. I believe that this is a great feature of this poem.







This is an image taken from the illustrated book made from the poem. Painted by Ted Harrison it depicts Sam McGee sitting in the furnace, warm at last. I believe that this image represents the poem well because it summarizes Sam's Dream of being cremated and shows it fulfilled, all at once.