The Cremation of Sam McGee"

 

 

 

“The Cremation of Sam McGee” -  by Robert W. Service

 

                      The Poem opens with a rhyming Octet explaining the subject of the work:

 

             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.

 

              Lines A&C, E & F have interior rhymes, B & D, F & G are rhyming endings. It is a pattern of rhyme scheme that Service continues throughout the remaining 13 quatrains. His sequencing is rhythmic and ascends in intensity like a chant around a tribal fire. The volume and cadence are meant to entertain the listeners with a fast -sequenced series of actions that unveil the specter of the frozen Yukon during the great gold rush of 1898. The typography of the lines adds to the visual and tonal rhythm of the piece. He sets the mood and the scene with second quatrain:

 

         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 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.

                                                                                         

             The voice is first person throughout, a narrator telling a story around a campfire in the frozen North:

 

“In the long, long night by the lone firelight, while the               huskies round in a ring,

        Howled out their woes to the homeless snows-

         “God,how I loathe that thing.”

 

             The story of the poem is of a promise made to a dying friend that he not be left alone in the cold of the frozen arctic wastes. The Narrator carries the body overland on a sled and cremates him on a marge in Lake Lebarge, keeping his promise to the dying Sam McGee..

 

          He turned to me and “Cap” says he,

         “I’ll cash in this trip I guess;

           And if I do, I’m asking you

           won’t refuse my last request.”

 

         The opening Octet repeats itself at Poem’s end giving a rhythmic synopsis of the poem’s content. The rhyming and rhythmic cadence to the poem make it one to be listened to by a quiet and appreciative audience. It shares some of that quality with good drama, but is more intense and aurally appealing.

 

        It shares the narrative quality of fiction in the manner of a good story told, that involves colorful characters, a rich visual backdrop, fleshed out with highly descriptive imagery and the perspicacity of a narrator telling a well-crafted and interesting tale.

 

        It would not play well as a dramatic stage production. There  are too many scenes and too much action over a short period. As a movie, it would be a wonderful script, rich in story, character and dramatic resolution to an emotional situation in a harsh climate where man perseveres in adversity.

 

          Robert W. Service could well have crafted fiction stories on this subject, similar to Jack London. His strength is in his rhyming repetitive narration and brevity. These poems were created initially for the listening pleasure of an audience of the unlettered, many of whom were far away from the comforts of home, and who would immediately empathize with the subject and premise of the poem’s content.

                                                                                         

         The real strength of the work is the careful parsing of the rhyming syllables to create a mesmerizing cadence that keeps the interest of listeners everywhere. The imagery is rich in its descriptions of the severity of the climate. Yet, the warmth of the human connection and the promise based on friendship, give it life and interest. We can readily “see “a man mushing through the Arctic, with the body of a fallen friend on his sled.

 

       The last quatrain, before the ending octet, gives humor to the piece and rescues it from the tragic as the author looks into the pyre where he has placed the body of his friend Sam McGee.

 

      “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 the 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,

         i t’s the first time I’ve been warm.”

 

         The repetition of the opening octet, at the close of the poem, gives it a finality and an aural closure to this tale of struggle under the harsh conditions of Winter in the land of the midnight sun.

 

         “There are strange things done in the midnight sun

            By the men who moil for gold.”

 

         “The Cremation of Sam McGee,” and other poems by Robert W. Service, are the works of a master wordsmith telling an artful tale.

 

                                                      -30-

 

                                                ( 883 words )

 

                                            Joseph X. Martin