Robert W Service, Birthday, born this date 1-16-1874 . "A promise made is a debt unpaid"

"Now a promise made is a debt unpaid, and the trail has its own stern code"

From "The Cremation of Sam McGee"

 

Picture from The Library Archives of Canada.

 

Final verse from "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.

 

Robert William Service (January 16, 1874 – September 11, 1958) was a British-Canadian poet and writer who has often been called "the Bard of the Yukon" He is best known for his poems "The Shooting of Dan McGrew" and "The Cremation of Sam McGee", from his first book, Songs of a Sourdough (1907; also published as The Spell of the Yukon and Other Verses). His vivid descriptions of the Yukon and its people made it seem that he was a veteran of the Klondike gold rush, instead of the late-arriving bank clerk. His work remains popular,

 

Modified text from Wikipedia

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