The  Shooting  Of  Dan  McGrew

A bunch of the boys were whooping it up in the Malamute saloon;
The kid that handles the music-box was hitting a jag-time tune;
Back of the bar, in a solo game, sat Dangerous Dan McGrew,
And watching his luck was his light-o'-love, the lady that's known as Lou.

When out of the night, which was fifty below, and into the din and glare,
There stumbled a miner fresh from the creeks, dog-dirty, and loaded for bear.
He looked like a man with a foot in the grave and scarcely the strength of a louse,
Yet he tilted a poke of dust on the bar, and he called for drinks for the house.
There was none could place the stranger's face, though we searched ourselves for a clue;
But we drank his health, and the last to drink was Dangerous Dan McGrew.

There's men that somehow just grip your eyes, and hold them hard like a spell;
And such was he, and he looked to me like a man who had lived in hell;
With a face most hair, and the dreary stare of a dog whose day is done,
As he watered the green stuff in his glass, and the drops fell one by one.
Then I got to figgering who he was, and wondering what he'd do,
And I turned my head--and there watching him was the lady that's known as Lou.

His eyes went rubbering round the room, and he seemed in a kind of daze,
Till at last that old piano fell in the way of his wandering gaze.
The rag-time kid was having a drink; there was no one else on the stool,
So the stranger stumbles across the room, and flops down there like a fool.
In a buckskin shirt that was dazed with dirt he sat, and I saw him sway,
Then he clutched the keys with his talon hands--my God! but that man could play.

Were you ever out in the Great Alone, when the moon was awful clear,
And the icy mountains hemmed you in with a silence you most could hear;
With only the howl of a timber wolf, and you camped there in the cold,
A helf-dead thing in a stark, dead world, clean mad for the muck called gold;
While high overhead, green, yellow, and red, the North Lights swept in bars?--
Then you've a hunch what the music meant . . . hunger and night and the stars.

And hunger not of the belly kind, that's banished with bacon and beans,
But the gnawing hunger of lonely men for a home and all that it means;
For a fireside far from the cares that are, four walls and a roof above;
But oh! so cramful of cozy joy, and crowded with a woman's love--
A woman dearer than all the world, and true as Heaven is true--
(God! how ghastly she looks through her rouge,--the lady that's known as Lou.)

Then on a sudden the music changed, so soft that you scarcely could hear;
But you felt that your life had been looted clean of all that it once held dear;
That someone had stolen the woman you loved; that her love was a devil's lie;
That your guts were gone, and the best for you was to crawl away and die.
'Twas the crowning cry of a heart's despair, and it thrilled you through and through-
"I guess I'll make it a spread misere," said Dangerous Dan McGrew.

The music almost dies away . . . then it burst like a pent-up flood;
And it seemed to say, "Repay, repay," and my eyes were blind with blood.
The thought came back of an ancient wrong, and it stung like a frozen lash,
And the lust awoke to kill, to kill . . . then the music stopped with a crash,
And the stranger turned, and his eyes they burned in a most peculiar way;
In a buckskin shirt that was glazed with dirt he sat, and I saw him sway;
Then his lips went in in a kind of grin, and he spoke, and his voice was calm,
And "Boys," says he, "you don't know me, and none of you care a damn;
But I want to state, and my words are straight, and I'll bet my poke they're true,
That one of you is a hound of hell . . . and that one is Dan McGrew."

Then I ducked my head and the lights went out, and two guns blazed in the dark;
And a woman screamed, and the lights went up, and two men lay stiff and stark.
Pitched on his head, and pumped full of lead, was Dangerous Dan McGrew,
While the man from the creeks lay clutched to the breast of the lady that's known as Lou.

These are the simple facts of the case, and I guess I ought to know.
They say that the stranger was crazed with "hooch," and I'm not denying it's so.
I'm not so wise as the lawyer guys, but strictly between us two--
The woman that kissed him and--pinched his poke--was the lady known as Lou.

The   Cremation  Of  Sam  McGee

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 'tain't 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.

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;
And 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.

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.

[ webmasters note] A reading of "The Cremation of Sam McGee" was a tradition of the science teacher I had in the 7th grade (1949). He recited it once a year for each new class. On a particularly cold winters day in Chicago, he would open all the classroom windows and turn off the heat (we knew to dress warmly that day). Once the ambiance was set, he commenced a rendition from memory. I have never forgotten it. Many years later on a subsequent trip to Alaska where Service is still widely known, I came to learn even more about this creative poet.

Both Poems Public Domain

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Two Poems By Robert Service

Robert Service  1874-1958

"Bard of the Klondike"

Robert Service was a man who by his own admission, loved telling stories, craved adventure and travel, and in later years professed a deep appreciation for eight years spent in the lonely Canadian north, saying that his time there was the greatest of his life. An avid outdoorsman, Service enjoyed going for long, solitary walks through desolate wilderness. Yet it was there in the vast Canadian Yukon that he would come to create his best and most renowned work.

Robert William Service arrived in Canada in 1896 after becoming disillusioned by what he felt was a static and routine lifestyle in his native Scotland. An adventurer at heart, and with an unquenchable thirst for knowledge coupled with an almost boyish allure for the wild west, Service resigned his bank tellers job in Glasgow and sailed for Canada. He settled in British Columbia and over the next six years worked many different jobs. He even spent a few years travelling through California and exploring the Barbary coast.

By 1903 Service decided to return to Canada and found himself penniless in Vancouver. A local bank needed tellers and Service applied, finding himself doing the same work he had only a few years before disdained. New job postings came up for positions at the Bank of Commerce in Whitehorse, in the Yukon. Service moved north and immediately found himself captivated by the vast solitude and intrigued by the thousands of men arriving daily in search of Klondike gold.

Whitehorse also provided Service with just enough social contact to keep him happy. He often recited poetry or gave readings at socials or church concerts. A close friend, impressed by Services oratory prowess, encouraged him to write, and suggested he start with tales about the Yukon. Service seized the opportunity and was almost immediately inspired by the bawdy celebration going on down the street at a popular saloon. These classic words popped into his head, A bunch of the boys were whooping it up at the Malamute Saloon.... And so in a frenzy of creativity, and almost getting his head blown off the process, he wrote his most famous work, The Shooting of Dan McGraw.

This first effort unleashed in Service an almost unstoppable creative streak. Over the next few months he wrote dozens more poems, enough to fill a small volume. He intended to compile the Yukon lore and give the poems to family and friends for Christmas. However, Songs of the Sourdough, which contained the memorable, Shooting of Dan McGraw, became a resounding success with New York publishers and established Robert Services career as a storyteller and poet, and finally gave him financial independence.

In 1908 Service was transferred to a new bank in Dawson City, 400 miles north of Whitehorse. He lived and worked in a rustic cabin where he finished another volume of poetry entitled Ballads of a Cheechako. His second book was another runaway success and the next year Service quit his bank job to write full time.

The gold rush was in full swing in Dawson City and Service decided this would be the theme of his next book. He travelled to boom towns and talked with prospectors and all manner of interesting and colorful characters along the way. Once he finished his book he left Dawson City, and moved to New York, where The Trail of 98 became another success.

Service travelled to the southern United States, Cuba, and then back to Canada, returning to the Yukon via canoe up the Mackenzie River. He retired to his cabin and finished another book of poetry. When Rhymes of a Rolling Stone was completed in 1912, he sent it in for publication, and was then offered a job as war correspondent. While travelling in Europe, he married, then settled in Brittany, France. During the first WW Service again served as a war correspondent for Canada. After conflicts ended, he produced additional volumes of poetry and novels. He died in 1958 and was buried in Lancieux, France, and remains the most widely read poet of the 1900s.

Robert Service never returned to the land he loved most in the world, however, his many poems and stories remain a written tribute to the Canadian Yukon and to Services life-long devotion to it.

Above text courtesy of Robert W Service.com

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