{
 "id": "robert-w-service/the-spell-of-the-yukon",
 "title": "The Spell of the Yukon",
 "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": 3,
 "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": 72,
  "n_stanzas": 9,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 48,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "I wanted the gold, and I sought it;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I scrabbled and mucked like a slave.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Was it famine or scurvy⁠—I fought it,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I hurled my youth into the grave.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "I wanted the gold and I got it⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Came out with a fortune last fall⁠—",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Yet somehow life’s not what I thought it,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And somehow the gold isn’t all.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "No! There’s the land. (Have you seen it?)",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It’s the cussedest land that I know,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "From the big, dizzy mountains that screen it,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To the deep, deathlike valleys below.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Some say God was tired when He made it;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Some say it’s a fine land to shun;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Maybe: but there’s some as would trade it",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For no land on earth⁠—and I’m one.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "You come to get rich (damned good reason),",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You feel like an exile at first;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "You hate it like hell for a season,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And then you are worse than the worst.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "It grips you like some kinds of sinning;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It twists you from foe to a friend;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "It seems it’s been since the beginning;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It seems it will be to the end.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I’ve stood in some mighty-mouthed hollow",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That’s plumb-full of hush to the brim;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "I’ve watched the big, husky sun wallow",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In crimson and gold, and grow dim,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Till the moon set the pearly peaks gleaming,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the stars tumbled out, neck and crop;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And I’ve thought that I surely was dreaming,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With the peace o’ the world piled on top.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The summer⁠—no sweeter was ever;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The sunshiny woods all athrill;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The grayling aleap in the river,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The bighorn asleep on the hill.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The strong life that never knows harness;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The wilds where the caribou call;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The freshness, the freedom, the farness⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "O God! how I’m stuck on it all.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The winter! the brightness that blinds you,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The white land locked tight as a drum,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The cold fear that follows and finds you,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The silence that bludgeons you dumb.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The snows that are older than history,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The woods where the weird shadows slant;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The stillness, the moonlight, the mystery,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I’ve bade ’em goodbye⁠—but I can’t.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "There’s a land where the mountains are nameless,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the rivers all run God knows where;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "There are lives that are erring and aimless,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And deaths that just hang by a hair;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "There are hardships that nobody reckons;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "There are valleys unpeopled and still;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "There’s a land⁠—oh, it beckons and beckons,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And I want to go back⁠—and I will.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "They’re making my money diminish;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I’m sick of the taste of champagne.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Thank God! when I’m skinned to a finish",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I’ll pike to the Yukon again.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "I’ll fight⁠—and you bet it’s no sham-fight;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It’s hell!⁠—but I’ve been there before;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And it’s better than this by a damsite⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So me for the Yukon once more.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "There’s gold, and it’s haunting and haunting;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It’s luring me on as of old;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Yet it isn’t the gold that I’m wanting,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So much as just finding the gold.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "It’s the great, big, broad land ’way up yonder,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It’s the forests where silence has lease;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "It’s the beauty that thrills me with wonder,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It’s the stillness that fills me with peace.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}