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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... Read Full Overview

There where the mighty mountains bare their fangs unto the moon,
There where the sullen sun-dogs glare in the snow-bright, bitter noon,
And the glacier-glutted streams sweep down at the clarion call of June.

The lonely sunsets flame and die; The giant valleys gulp the night; The monster mountains scrape the sky, Where eager stars are diamond-bright.

"There are strange things done in the midnight sun," declared Robert Service as he related the fulfillment of a dying prospector's request. "The Cremation of Sam McGee" was based on one of many peculiar tales he heard upon his 1904 arrival in the Canadian frontier town of Whitehorse... Read Full Overview

The Land God Forgot The lonely sunsets flare forlorn Down valleys dreadly desolate; The lordly mountains soar in scorn

Robert William Service (1874-1958) was a British-Canadian poet and writer, often called "the Bard of the Yukon". Born in Lancashire of Scottish descent, he was a bank clerk by trade, and spent long periods travelling in Western America and Canada, often in poverty. When his bank... Read Full Overview

""The Spell of the Yukon"" is a collection of poems by Robert W. Service, originally published in 1907. The poems explore the rugged and wild landscape of the Yukon territory in Canada, as well as the people who lived and worked in the region during the gold rush of the late... Read Full Overview

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it.

This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely... Read Full Overview

Robert W. Service (1874-1958) was a Canadian poet best known for his poems about the Canadian North. Service came to Canada when he was 21 hoping to become a cowboy. Instead he ended up working in a bank in the Yukon Territory. "The Shooting of Dan McGrew" and "The Cremation... Read Full Overview

Robert Service wrote in the golden years of the Klondike -- of the rough and ready men, and women just as tough. No-one in Robert's world (real or imagined) minced words or had any self-consciousness about them. It was live and let live and sometimes kill or be killed. Reading... Read Full Overview