The Cremation Of Sam Mcgee

The music almost died 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 that's

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 cursèd cold, and it's got right hold till I'm chilled

clean through to the bone.

Yet 'taint 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."