Alaska, the largest state in the United States, is known for its stunning natural beauty, rugged landscapes, and rich cultural heritage. It has inspired countless artists, writers, and poets to capture its essence through their work. One such poet is Robert Service, who is renowned for his evocative and captivating poems about Alaska.
Robert William Service was a British-Canadian poet and writer who spent a significant part of his life in the Yukon Territory, Canada, which shares a border with Alaska. He is often referred to as the “Bard of the Yukon” and is best known for his poems that depict the harsh realities of life in the North. Service’s poems about Alaska are imbued with a sense of adventure, exploration, and the indomitable spirit of the people who call this untamed wilderness their home.
Unique and Beautiful Robert Service Poems About Alaska
Unique and Beautiful Robert Service Poems About Alaska
“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.
“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.
“The Spell of the Yukon”
I wanted the gold, and I sought it;
I scrabbled and mucked like a slave.
Was it famine or scurvy—I fought it;
I hurled my youth into a grave.
I wanted the gold, and I got it—
Came out with a fortune last fall,—
Yet somehow life’s not what I thought it,
And somehow the gold isn’t all.
No! There’s the land. (Have you seen it?)
It’s the cussedest land that I know,
From the big, dizzy mountains that screen it
To the deep, deathlike valleys below.
“The Law of the Yukon”
This is the law of the Yukon, and ever she makes it plain:
Send not your foolish and feeble; send me your strong and your sane;
Strong for the red rage of battle; sane for I harry them sore;
Send me men girt for the combat, men who are grit to the core;
Swift as the panther in triumph, fierce as the bear in defeat,
Sired of a bulldog parent, steeled in the furnace heat.
“The Ballad of Blasphemous Bill”
I took a contract to bury the body of blasphemous Bill MacKie,
Whenever, wherever or whatsoever the manner of death he die—
Whether he die in the light o’ day or under the peak-faced moon;
In cabin or dance-hall, camp or dive, mucklucks or patent shoon;
On velvet tundra or virgin peak, by glacier, drift or draw;
In muskeg hollow or canyon gloom, by avalanche, fang or flaw;
In Jimmie’s ribs or beneath the rocks where the bones of his fathers lie
I swore I would follow and find him and lay him again to sky.
“The Ballad of One-Eyed Mike”
This is the tale that was told to me by the man with the crystal eye,
As I smoked my pipe in the camp-fire’s light, and the Northern Lights danced by.
The man with the crystal eye, he was a rough-hewn man and stout,
And his smile was sad, and his face was tanned, and his beard was a beard of doubt.
The man with the crystal eye, he crooked a crooked smile,
Saying: “What’s the use of a wooden peg? It ain’t my style.”
“The Call of the Wild”
Have you gazed on naked grandeur where there’s nothing else to gaze on,
Set pieces and drop-curtain scenes galore,
Big mountains heaved to heaven, which the blinding sunsets blazon,
Black canyons where the rapids rip and roar?
Have you swept the visioned valley with the green stream streaking through it,
Searched the Vastness for a something you have lost?
Have you strung your soul to silence? Then for God’s sake go and do it;
Hear the challenge, learn the lesson, pay the cost.
“The Men That Don’t Fit In”
There’s a race of men that don’t fit in,
A race that can’t stay still;
So they break the hearts of kith and kin,
And they roam the world at will.
They range the field and they rove the flood,
And they climb the mountain’s crest;
Theirs is the curse of the gypsy blood,
And they don’t know how to rest.
“The Lone Trail”
Oh, the lone trail, the trail that is always new,
The trail that is always strange;
The trail you tread with weary dread,
But never, never can change.
The Lone Trail, the Lone Trail, the trail that never bends,
The trail that goes on and on, the trail that never ends;
The Lone Trail, the Lone Trail, the trail that’s always new
The Lone Trail, the Lone Trail, I’m tired of it for you.
“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.
Robert Service’s poems about Alaska offer a glimpse into the soul-stirring beauty and challenges of life in this remote and unforgiving land. With his words, he transports readers to a world where the Northern Lights dance, gold seekers brave freezing temperatures, and the untamed wilderness beckons with its rugged allure. Through his unique and beautiful verses, Robert Service has immortalized the spirit of Alaska and captured the hearts of readers for generations to come.
