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The Cremation of Sam McGee

by Robert W. Service · 1907 · 4 min de lecture · 79 lignes

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The Cremation of Sam McGee by Robert W. Service is a narrative poem about a traveler who promises to burn his companion’s body rather than leave it in an icy grave. The narrator, Cap, introduces the strange event before describing Sam’s misery in the northern cold. On Christmas Day, their eyelashes freeze along the Dawson trail. Sam fears death is near and asks for cremation; after he dies, Cap hauls his body onward despite tired dogs and dwindling food. At Lake Lebarge, Cap finds an abandoned boat, tears up floorboards, and builds a furnace fire. When he finally opens the furnace door, Sam is sitting inside, smiling and asking him to keep out the cold. The repeated opening closes this grim journey with an impossible, comic surprise.

There are strange things done in the midnight sunBy the men who moil for gold;The Arctic trails have their secret talesThat would make your blood run cold;The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,But the queerest they ever did seeWas that night on the marge of Lake LebargeI 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 holdtill 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 rolleddown 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 sunBy the men who moil for gold;The Arctic trails have their secret talesThat would make your blood run cold;The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,But the queerest they ever did seeWas that night on the marge of Lake LebargeI cremated Sam McGee.

Ce que cela signifie, ligne par ligne

Lignes 1 à 16: The opening announces a strange cremation beside Lake Lebarge, making readers wait for its explanation. Sam comes from Tennessee and longs for warmth, yet gold keeps him in the North. The Christmas journey makes the cold painfully concrete: it pierces clothing and freezes eyelashes. These details establish both the danger and Sam’s special misery.

Lignes 17 à 30: During a night beneath the snow, Sam tells Cap that he expects to die. His greatest fear is not death itself but burial in frozen ground. Cap agrees to cremate him out of loyalty. Sam’s death the next day turns their quiet conversation into an obligation that must now be carried out.

Lignes 31 à 46: Cap carries the corpse through an exhausting landscape, feeling trapped by his promise. He imagines the body reminding him of his duty and even listening to his songs. Howling dogs, lonely firelight, and shrinking food supplies deepen his distress. His disgust does not erase his belief that a promise must be honored.

Lignes 47 à 60: An abandoned boat named Alice May offers Cap a way to fulfill his pledge. He burns floorboards and coal in its boiler furnace, then places Sam inside. The practical task becomes frightening through roaring flames, greasy smoke, and the sound of burning. Cap retreats, sweating despite the bitter weather, overwhelmed by what he has done.

Lignes 61 à 79: Cap returns in dread, only to find Sam sitting comfortably in the furnace. Sam’s request to close the door turns the horror into comedy: the deadly heat finally gives him the warmth he has missed. The repeated opening frames this impossible scene as a remarkable trail tale rather than explaining how it could happen.

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Trois questions pour réfléchir

  1. How does the repeated opening change in meaning after Sam speaks from inside the furnace?
  2. Which details show the conflict between Cap’s loyalty to Sam and his disgust at carrying the body?
  3. How does the poem prepare readers for both the horror and the humor of its ending?

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