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Jan 11, 2021 · A kayaking adventure in Alaska offers an astonishing landscape filled with extraordinary sights. (AP Photo/Lynn Dombek) Robert Service was known as 'the bard of the Yukon,' and wrote some of the ...
- Molly Duffy
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.
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‘The Cremation of Sam McGee’ by Robert Service(Poems)talks about a prospector, Sam McGee who froze to death and how his friend cremated his body on the marge of Lake Lebarge. This poem presents a character named Sam McGee. He lived in Plumtree, near Tennessee. The speaker of the poem and McGee left their southern hometown and went to the chilling N...
‘The Cremation of Sam McGee’begins with a prologue. Service uses the same stanza to conclude the poem. It acts as a refrain. Apart from that, there are a total of 15 stanzas in this poem. The body of the poem contains 13 four-lined stanzas. Each stanza contains rhyming lines. The rhyme scheme of the overall poem is AABB. Whereas the prologue and ep...
There are several literary devices in this poem. To begin with, the prologue to the poem contains personification in the lines, “The Arctic trails have their secret tales” and “The Northern Lights have seen queer sights.” The line, “But the queerest they ever did see,” contains hyperbole. Thereafter, in the first stanza, the phrase, “God only knows...
‘The Cremation of Sam McGee’ contains some important themes such as the lust for gold, human greed, suffering, horror, and vanity of human desire. The most important theme of the poem that leads to the downfall of the titular character Sam McGee is the lust for gold. He left the comforts of his home in search of gold in the North Pole. It led to hi...
The Prologue
The prologue to ‘The Cremation of Sam McGee’, gives a basic description of the poem. Firstly, the speaker of the poem says there are strange things done in the midnight sun. It’s the first image that portrays an incident that happened in the midnight sun. Here, the poet refers to the time of early dawn. Thereafter, the speaker says the men who moil for gold did those things at that time. After reading the poem, readers can understand why the poet gives such a description at the beginning of t...
Stanza One
The first stanza of the poem describes Sam McGee. He was from Tennessee where people cultivated cotton. The speaker asks why McGee left his home in the South to roam around the North Pole. He is not sure why he did so. Hence he says God only knows the reason for McGee’s departure. However, McGee was a cold person but the land of gold seemed to hold him like a spell. It was the spell of lust that made McGee restless. According to the speaker, McGee was aware of the fact that he’d sooner live i...
Stanza Two
In the second stanza, the speaker says on a Christmas Day they were mushing their way over the Dawson trail. It was extremely cold out there. The chilling air was stabbing them like a driven nail through the parka’s fold. If they would close their eyes, the eyelashes froze till sometimes they could not see anything. The speaker says it was not much fun but the only one to whimper was Sam McGee. It is not clear why McGee whimpered. Whatsoever, it seems that he whimpered as he was aware of wher...
‘The Cremation of Sam McGee’, one of the famous poems of Robert Service(Poems), was published in 1907 in “Songs of a Sourdough”. The poet based the poem on the experience of his roommate, Dr. Leonard S. E. Sugden. Once, he cremated a corpse in the firebox of the steamer named “Olive May”. Although the poem is a fictional tale of Sam McGee, it was b...
Here is a list of a few poems that are similar to Service’s ‘The Cremation of Sam McGee’. 1. A Legend of the Northlandby Phoebe Cary(Poems)– In this poem, the poet talks about an old lady who was cursed due to her greed. 2. The Telephone Callby Fleur Adcock(Bio | Poems) – Here, in this poem, Adcock presents an ironical telephone conversation. This ...
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Marge LeBarge is the owner of the Kokoweef Mine in 2241. Marge was born in Canada, on the edge of Lake LeBarge.[1] Life shaped her into a strong woman with a burly appearance and a definite air of authority around her.[2]
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;
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.”
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 crematorium.”
