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    The Spell of the Yukon and Other Verses
    The Spell of the Yukon and Other Verses
    The Spell of the Yukon and Other Verses
    Ebook113 pages58 minutes

    The Spell of the Yukon and Other Verses

    By Robert W. (Robert William) Service

    4/5

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    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArchive Classics
    Release dateJan 1, 1978
    The Spell of the Yukon and Other Verses

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    Reviews for The Spell of the Yukon and Other Verses

    4/5

    58 ratings6 reviews

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    • 4/5
      I find reviewing poetry really difficult, so I don't have anything particularly brilliant to say. I loved this book a lot. It's authentic Canadian pioneer days, gold rush stuff, and it's got the meter of Scottish drinking songs. I read quite a lot of it out loud -- couldn't help it, it begs to be sung if at all possible.

      Parts are paeans to how awesome men (sic) who are strong and adventurous enough to survive life in the Yukon are and how they don't want any weaklings or cripples. Other parts are about how the Yukon will kill you, no matter how awesome you think you are. Other parts are about kissing your sweetheart goodbye and going off into the mountains for the rest of your life and all the grief you feel over causing them pain, but you're just that kind of misfit guy.

      All the women are harlots or mothers...except there are like two mentions of actual wives, who are left. And there are several mentions of the ideal life with a wife and home. And there are several depictions of the Yukon itself as feminine, almost like an earth goddess -- wife and mother and lover all together.

      The other thing I noticed was the poem about living in a city of Men, except they all had a Siwash girl, who was (according to the white male speaker) wracked with guilt over betraying her people by whoring herself out in such a way. Makes me very, very curious about that bit of women's history and how long ago it was taking place, what with the Yukon gold rush being way more recent than the Spanish colonial gold rush of the 16th-18th centuries.

      Anyway, good poems, great window on history and culture, possibly great drinking songs for western Canadians. It probably helps to have been there, which I have, so I have no trouble imagining the scenery he's describing. It's truly awe-inspiring, and I love that he goes to the sublime, God-loving place with it so often. The land is stunning and deadly, and I can only imagine it before roads and dynamite, wandering with only a sled team and a campfire.

      It reminds me of my History of the American West course. I wish there'd been more Canada in it.
    • 4/5
      My fourth grade teacher introduced me to Robert Service by reading The Cremation of Sam McGee to the class. I have been a fan of his ever since and have read most of his poetry. This book does not disappoint. It consists of 34 poems, including the Cremation of Sam McGee.
    • 5/5
      Many of the classic poems of Robert Service, including "The Shooting of Dan McGrew" and "The Cremation of Sam McGee" Common man rhyming poetry; Full of humor and thoughtfulness.
    • 5/5
      This is a reissue of the 1907 book published by Dodd, Mead & Company and it includes besides "The Spell of the Yukon," such poems by Robert Service as "The Shooting of Dan McGrew," "The Cremation of Sam McGee," "The Younger Son," "The Woman and the Angel," and others.
    • 5/5
      My maternal grandfather loved the poems of Robert Service. I am told that he would recite them a lot to entertainn people. His coppy of poems I beleive went to a cousin and I was unable to locate a tape of his recitaions so I just ended up buying my own copy. The poems are witty and I have a special place for them due to my granddaddy.
    • 3/5
      Service's poems don't exactly trip off the tongue, with their long, long lines. And some of the works in this collection are minor or even a bit embarrassing. But at his best, Service is unforgettable. "There are strange things done in the midnight sun, by the men who moil for gold." And so on. The book starts with several strong poems that definitely capture the feel of Canada's far North and the men who were compelled to try to make a living there. Later, it loses its cohesiveness, but it is still an enjoyable read.

    Book preview

    The Spell of the Yukon and Other Verses - Robert W. (Robert William) Service

    The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Spell of the Yukon, by Robert Service

    This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with

    almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or

    re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included

    with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

    Title: The Spell of the Yukon

    Author: Robert Service

    Release Date: July 11, 2008 [EBook #207]

    Last Updated: January 15, 2013

    Language: English

    *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SPELL OF THE YUKON ***

    Produced by A. Light, G.L. Warner, and David Widger

    THE SPELL OF THE YUKON AND OTHER VERSES

    by Robert W. Service

    [British-born Canadian Poet — 1874-1958.]

    [This text was also published (in Britain) under the title, Songs of a Sourdough.]

    [This etext pretty much matches the American editions of 1907 and 1916.]

    To C. M.

    CONTENTS

    The Land God Forgot

    The Spell of the Yukon

    The Heart of the Sourdough

    The Three Voices

    The Law of the Yukon

    The Parson's Son

    The Call of the Wild

    The Lone Trail

    The Pines

    The Lure of Little Voices

    The Song of the Wage-Slave

    Grin

    The Shooting of Dan McGrew

    The Cremation of Sam McGee

    My Madonna

    Unforgotten

    The Reckoning

    Quatrains

    The Men That Don't Fit In

    Music in the Bush

    The Rhyme of the Remittance Man

    The Low-Down White

    The Little Old Log Cabin

    The Younger Son

    The March of the Dead

    Fighting Mac

    The Woman and the Angel

    The Rhyme of the Restless Ones

    New Year's Eve

    Comfort

    The Harpy

    Premonition

    The Tramps

    L'Envoi

    The Land God Forgot

         The lonely sunsets flare forlorn

          Down valleys dreadly desolate;

         The lordly mountains soar in scorn

          As still as death, as stern as fate.

    The lonely sunsets flame and die;

               The giant valleys gulp the night;

              The monster mountains scrape the sky,

               Where eager stars are diamond-bright.

         So gaunt against the gibbous moon,

          Piercing the silence velvet-piled,

         A lone wolf howls his ancient rune —

          The fell arch-spirit of the Wild.

    O outcast land!  O leper land!

               Let the lone wolf-cry all express

              The hate insensate of thy hand,

               Thy heart's abysmal loneliness.

    Contents with First Lines:

       The Land God Forgot

        The lonely sunsets flare forlorn,

       The Spell of the Yukon

        I wanted the gold, and I sought it,

       The Heart of the Sourdough

        There where the mighty mountains bare their fangs unto the moon,

       The Three Voices

        The waves have a story to tell me,

       The Law of the Yukon

        This is the law of the Yukon, and ever she makes it plain,

       The Parson's Son

        This is the song of the parson's son, as he squats in his shack alone,

       The Call of the Wild

        Have you gazed on naked grandeur where there's nothing else to gaze on,

       The Lone Trail

        Ye who know the Lone Trail fain would follow it,

       The Pines

        We sleep in the sleep of ages, the bleak, barbarian pines,

       The Lure of Little Voices

        There's a cry from out the loneliness — oh, listen, Honey, listen!

       The Song of the Wage-Slave

        When the long, long day is over, and the Big Boss gives me my pay,

       Grin

        If you're up against a bruiser and you're getting knocked about,

       The Shooting of Dan McGrew

        A bunch of the boys were whooping it up in the Malamute saloon,

       The Cremation of Sam McGee

        There are strange things done in the midnight sun,

       My Madonna

        I haled me a woman from the street,

       Unforgotten

        I know a garden where the lilies gleam,

       The Reckoning

        It's fine to have a blow-out in a fancy restaurant,

       Quatrains

        One said:  Thy life is thine to make or mar,

       The Men That Don't Fit In

        There's a race of men that don't fit in,

       Music in the Bush

        O'er the dark pines she sees the silver moon,

       The Rhyme of the Remittance Man

        There's a four-pronged buck a-swinging in the shadow of my cabin,

       The Low-Down White

        This is the pay-day up at the mines, when the bearded brutes come down,

       The Little Old Log Cabin

        When a man gets on his uppers in a hard-pan sort of town,

       The Younger Son

        If you leave the gloom of London and you seek a glowing land,

       The March of the Dead

        The cruel war was over — oh, the triumph was so sweet,

       Fighting Mac

        A pistol shot rings round and round the world,

       The Woman and the Angel

        An angel was tired of heaven, as he lounged in the golden street,

       The Rhyme of the Restless Ones

        We couldn't sit and study for the law,

       New Year's Eve

        It's cruel cold on the water-front, silent and dark and drear,

       Comfort

        Say!  You've struck a heap of trouble,

       The Harpy

        There was a woman, and she was wise; woefully wise was she,

       Premonition

        'Twas a year ago,

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