{
 "id": "robert-w-service/the-cremation-of-sam-mcgee",
 "title": "The Cremation of Sam McGee",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Robert W. Service",
 "poet_slug": "robert-w-service",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Songs of a Sourdough",
 "book_slug": "songs-of-a-sourdough",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 14,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1907,
  "venue": "Songs of a Sourdough (1907)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/songsofsourdoug00serv"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/robert-w-service_songs-of-a-sourdough",
  "file": "poetry.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/25546",
   "https://archive.org/details/songsofsourdoug00serv"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-20"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 68,
  "n_stanzas": 15,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 90,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "There are strange things done in the midnight sun",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By the men who moil for gold;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The Arctic trails have their secret tales",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That would make your blood run cold;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But the queerest they ever did see",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I cremated Sam McGee.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Now Sam McGee was from Tennessee, where the cotton blooms and blows.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Why he left his home in the South to roam round the Pole God only knows.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He was always cold, but the land of gold seemed to hold him like a spell;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Though he’d often say in his homely way that he’d “sooner live in hell.”",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "On a Christmas Day we were mushing our way over the Dawson trail.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Talk of your cold! through the parka’s fold it stabbed like a driven nail.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "If our eyes we’d close, then the lashes froze, till sometimes we couldn’t see;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It wasn’t much fun, but the only one to whimper was Sam McGee.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And that very night as we lay packed tight in our robes beneath the snow,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the dogs were fed, and the stars o’erhead were dancing heel and toe,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He turned to me, and, “Cap,” says he, “I’ll cash in this trip, I guess;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And if I do, I’m asking that you won’t refuse my last request.”",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Well, he seemed so low that I couldn’t say no; then he says with a sort of moan:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“It’s the cursèd cold, and it’s got right hold till I’m chilled clean through to the bone.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yet ’taint being dead, it’s my awful dread of the icy grave that pains;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So I want you to swear that, foul or fair, you’ll cremate my last remains.”",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "A pal’s last need is a thing to heed, so I swore I would not fail;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And we started on at the streak of dawn, but God! he looked ghastly pale.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He crouched on the sleigh, and he raved all day of his home in Tennessee;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And before nightfall a corpse was all that was left of Sam McGee.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "There wasn’t a breath in that land of death, and I hurried, horror driven,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With a corpse half-hid that I couldn’t get rid because of a promise given;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It was lashed to the sleigh, and it seemed to say: “You may tax your brawn and brains,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But you promised true, and it’s up to you to cremate those last remains.”",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Now a promise made is a debt unpaid, and the trail has its own stern code.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In the days to come, though my lips were dumb, in my heart how I cursed that load.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In the long, long night, by the lone firelight, while the huskies, round in a ring,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Howled out their woes to the homeless snows⁠—O God! how I loathed the thing!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And every day that quiet clay seemed to heavy and heavier grow;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And on I went, though the dogs were spent and the grub was getting low;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The trail was bad, and I felt half mad, but I swore I would not give in;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And I’d often sing to the hateful thing, and it hearkened with a grin.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Till I came to the marge of Lake Lebarge, and a derelict there lay;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It was jammed in the ice, but I saw in a trice it was called the “Alice May.”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And I looked at it, and I thought a bit, and I looked at my frozen chum:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Then, “Here,” said I, with a sudden cry, “is my cre-ma-tor-eum.”",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Some planks I tore from the cabin floor, and I lit the boiler fire;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Some coal I found that was lying around, and I heaped the fuel higher;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The flames just soared, and the furnace roared⁠—such a blaze you seldom see;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And I burrowed a hole in the glowing coal, and I stuffed in Sam McGee.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Then I made a hike, for I didn’t like to hear him sizzle so;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the heavens scowled, and the huskies howled, and the wind began to blow.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It was icy cold, but the hot sweat rolled down my cheeks, and I don’t know why;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the greasy smoke in an inky cloak went streaking down the sky.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I do not know how long in the snow I wrestled with grisly fear;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But the stars came out and they danced about ere again I ventured near;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I was sick with dread, but I bravely said: “I’ll just take a peep inside.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I guess he’s cooked, and it’s time I looked,”⁠ ⁠… then the door I opened wide.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And there sat Sam, looking cool and calm, in the heart of the furnace roar;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And he wore a smile you could see a mile, and he said: “Please close that door.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It’s fine in here, but I greatly fear you’ll let in the cold and storm⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Since I left Plumtree, down in Tennessee, it’s the first time I’ve been warm.”",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "There are strange things done in the midnight sun",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By the men who moil for gold;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The Arctic trails have their secret tales",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That would make your blood run cold;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But the queerest they ever did see",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I cremated Sam McGee.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}