[HPFGU-OTChatter] Re: The Cremation of Sam McGee

[Sheryll Townsend]

> "bboyminn" <bboyminn at ...> wrote:
> >
> > I meant to tack this onto my last post, but I forgot.
> 
> > 
> > It is hard to say why some poems grab me, and other
> don't, but
> > I certainly found this one enjoyable. 
> > 
> > "The Cremation of Sam McGee"
> > Robert Service (1874-1958)
> > 
> > 
> 

Sheryll:

I've been a huge fan of Robert Service since I was about 16. No surprise that my discovery of his poetry coincided with a trip to the Yukon. :) When I got home I realised my father had a copy of The Collected Poems of Robert Service. I pretty much wore the covers off his copy and the year I moved away from home after high school he gave me my own copy for Christmas. 

I used to be able to recite The Cremation of Sam McGee off by heart. These days I'm lucky to remember the first couple verses. 

Steve/bboyminn:
<snip> 
> Robert Service also has his own website with several of his
> more popular poems -
> 
> http://www.robertwservice.com/
> 

Sheryll:

Most of my favourites are found on the website. Poetry is under the "Archives" link and is listed by book. In the style of The Cremation of Sam McGee, I also like The Ballad of the Ice-Worm Cocktail (found in Bar-Room Ballads) and The Shooting of Dan McGrew (found in The Spell of the Yukon, along with Sam McGee). 

I'm somewhat partial to some of his more sentimental works as well. Good-Bye, Little Cabin (from Rhymes of a Rolling Stone) and Spell of the Yukon (from the book of the same name). I don't think anyone who's stood in the wild open spaces of the Yukon can read Spell of the Yukon and not be moved by it. He captures it so perfectly, IMO, especially in the last few lines of that poem.

"It's the great, big, broad land 'way up yonder,
It's the forests where silence has lease;
It's the beauty that thrills me with wonder,
It's the stillness that fills me with peace."

It's been almost 35 years since I was in the Yukon (yes, I was an impressionable teenager <g>) and this poem still moves me when I read it. 

Sheryll, who still thanks the Girl Guides for sending her up there


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