MORE FUN AND IT’S THE ONLY ONE I EVER LEARNED.
on 10/25/2008 at 01:35 AM
Peiper, you and Drew should stop. Poetry! Arrghh!
Poem: 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’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 ‘taint 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.Finding boat to cremate Sam McGee.
—Word Info image © ALL rights reserved.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;
Then 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.Sam McGee sitting in the fire happy and warm.
—Word Info image © ALL rights reserved.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.—From Later Collected Verse; by Robert Service;
Dodd, Mead & Company; New York; 1970; pages 33-36.What do you bet that Sarahcuda knows Service’s poetry? Face it, I didn’t know about Robert W. Service until my ship docked in Anchorage in ‘85.
Thanks Peiper. But if this poetry thingy doesn’t stop, I’ll start posting some Baudelaire. You wouldn’t want that! Sick stuff, in a Lovecraftian way.
Well hell, if we’re gonna start posting poetry, I’m gonna post a piece that I wrote a few years back. I’m subject to the whims of something I call ‘Spike, the Attack Muse’. This is one of the better things Spike has dropped into my head over the years. And yes, the introduction/disclaimer is part of the piece. It’s the part that keeps me from getting stabbed or shot by an ex-girlfriend. (If read aloud it should be read with a cheesy Scots or Irish accent.)
***************************************************************************************The following is a work of fiction. The characters represented herein are not meant to bear any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead. With your permission,
Elegy
Lords and Ladies, neighbors and kinsmen,
From the High, the Middle and the Low,
We’re here for the wake of my darlin’ Kate,
The ugliest woman I know.Her hair was the color of wattle and daub.
Not a wave, not a shimmer, not a curl.
She’d had her nose broken when she was a child,
And again when she was a girl.She had her a figure, I have to admit,
Not unlike some fighters I know.
She could give you a fright in the wee of the night,
When she wanted to give it a go.Her ears and her teeth were rather too large,
They seemed to go on for a day.
You could tell for a mile whenever she’d smile,
Some folk would run screamin’ away.Her eyes were as dark as a two-day-old bruise.
She invented the look that could kill.
Perhaps it’s best that she’s gone to her rest,
But damme I love her still.(c) 1999 Sam Orton
And while I’m getting things out of my system, there’s also this one:
Dream Girl
(A comment on internet dating)Is she really out there?
Or only in my head?
Dare I believe that she could bring
My heart back from the dead?The more I learn about her,
The more she seems to be
The one that I’ve been waiting for,
The one who’s meant for me.I only know that when she speaks
She scares me to the core.
She steals away my self control,
And I love her all the more.My head is in a tizzy,
My heart is in a fret.
I cry out for the loving arms
Of a girl I’ve never met.(c) 2001 Sam Orton
10/25/2008 at 04:34 AM
