"Autobiographies of great nations are written in three manuscripts – a book of deeds, a book of words, and a book of art. Of the three, I would choose the latter as truest testimony." - Sir Kenneth Smith, Great Civilisations

"I must write each day without fail, not so much for the success of the work, as in order not to get out of my routine." - Leo Tolstoy

I have never believed that one should wait until one is inspired because I think the pleasures of not writing are so great that if you ever start indulging them you will never write again. - John Updike

"The life of every man is a diary in which he means to write one story, and writes another; and his humblest hour is when he compares the volume as it is with what he vowed to make it." - J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

Poetry is the shadow cast by our streetlight imaginations." - Lawrence Ferlinghetti


[Note - If any article requires updating or correction please notate this in the comment section. Thank you. - res]

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Bruce Degen - Jamberry Poem, Berry Jam Receipe, and Author Bio


Amazon link
"One berry, two berry, pick me a Blueberry !"
"Hatberry, Shoeberry in my Canoeberry;"
"Under the bridge and over the dam,"
"Looking for Berries - Berries for Jam !"

"Three berry, four berry, Hayberry, Strawberry -"
"Finger and Pawberry, My Berry, Your Berry;"
'Strawberry Ponies and Strawberry Lambs,"
'Dancing in meadows of Strawberry Jam !"

"Quickberry ! Quackberry ! Pick me a Blackberry !"
"Trainberry, Trackberry, Clickety-Clackberry;"
"Rumble and Ramble in Blackberry Bramble,"
"Billions of Berries for Blackberry Jamble !"

"Raspberry, Jazzberry, Razza-matazz-berry !"
"Berryband, Merryband, Jamming in Berryland..."
"Raspberry Rabbits and Brassberry Band,"
"Elephants skating on Raspberry Jam !"

"Moonberry, Starberry, Cloudberry Sky - "
"Boomberry, Zoomberry, Rockets shoot by !'
"Mountains and Fountains rain down on me,"
"Buried in Berries, what a Jam Jamboree !"


Bruce Degan, 1983

















Bruce Degen

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Bruce Degen
Bruce Degen at the 2012 Mazza Summer Conference.jpg
Degen at the Mazza Museum 2012 conference
BornJune 14, 1945 (age 75)
Brooklyn, New York, USA
NationalityAmerican
Education• Art Major, LaGuardia High School
• Bachelor of Fine Arts, Cooper Union
• Masters of Fine Arts, Pratt Institute
Known forIllustrator
Notable work
Jamberry, The Magic School Bus series, Jesse Bear series, Commander Toad series, Daddy is a Doodlebug, Shirley's Wonderful Baby.
Spouse(s)Christine
Children2
Bruce Degen (born June 14, 1945) is an American illustrator and writer with over forty children's books to his credit.[1]
He may be known best for illustrating the series The Magic School Bus written by Joanna Cole. He has collaborated with writers Nancy White Carlstrom, on the Jesse Bear books, and Jane Yolen, on the Commander Toad series. Degen has authored Jamberry, Daddy Is a Doodlebug, and Shirley's Wonderful Baby.
He was encouraged by an elementary school teacher to become an illustrator, and pursue his primary love for art found in children’s books. Humor is one of his key values, as expressed by a quote comparing children's illustration to traditional fine arts: "You don't see many people walking around a gallery are chuckling. And I realized that I wanted a chuckle."[2]
His career has included such diverse activities as advertising design, teaching art to students, teaching children's book illustration to adults, painting scenery for opera productions, and running a lithography studio in Israel. Degen lives in Connecticut.

Childhood

He was born in 1945 and raised in Brooklyn. His youth was marked by the contrast between urban New York City with the summertimes he spent in rural upstate New York, where he would pick wild berries. He credits these experiences as the inspiration for his book, Jamberry.
"It was green. It was soft. You could walk around in bare feet, and we used to go out and pick lots of berries that grew wild. I always thought of the world as being particularly generous and joyful. And when I was searching my memories, trying to write a book for very young children about being joyful, that popped right up."[2]

Education

Degen attended elementary school in Brooklyn, New York, and went on to attend art schools in Manhattan, including LaGuardia High School and Cooper Union for his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree.[3] He then attended Pratt Institute in Brooklyn where he obtained a Masters of Fine Arts degree with a major in printmaking and a minor in painting.[1][2][4]

Beach Channel High School

Before creating the Magic School Bus series, he taught art and other subjects at Beach Channel High School in the Rockaway Beach, Queens section of New York City, and at John Dewey High School in Brooklyn.[citation needed]

Family

Degen lives in Connecticut with his wife, Christine Degen,[5] and their two sons, Benjamin and Alexander[6] Benjamin Degen is a painter. Alex Degen writes and illustrates comic books.

Patronage

Bruce and Christine Degen contribute "Gifts to the Garden" for the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens.[7][8]
They sit as appointed members of the Newtown, Connecticut, Hattertown Historic District Commission.[9][10]

Selected bibliography

Bruce Degen poses in front of two pieces of his original artwork that are on display in the Mazza Museum.

References

  1. ^ Jump up to:a b "Bruce Degen, Biography". WeRead.com. Archived from the original on 2013-02-09. Retrieved 2008-10-29.
  2. ^ Jump up to:a b c "Reading Rockets: Transcript from an interview with Bruce Degen". ReadingRockets.org. Retrieved 2008-10-29.
  3. ^ "Teachers: Bruce Degen, Biography". Scholastic, Inc. Archived from the original on 2008-03-14. Retrieved 2008-10-29.
  4. ^ "Bruce Degen, Illustrator of "The Magic School Bus" and More". TheCartoonists.ca. 2006-11-17. Retrieved 2008-10-29.[dead link]
  5. ^ "Author: Bruce Degen, Biography". Harper Collins. Archived from the original on 2009-01-08. Retrieved 2008-10-29.
  6. ^ "Bruce Degen". Simon & Schuster. Retrieved 2016-03-20.
  7. ^ "Brooklyn Botanic Garden 2006 Annual Report". Brooklyn Botanic Garden. Archived from the original on 2008-05-31. Retrieved 2008-10-29.,
  8. ^ "Brooklyn Botanic Garden 2007 Annual Report". Brooklyn Botanic Garden. Archived from the original on October 30, 2008. Retrieved 2008-10-29.
  9. ^ "Town Government". The Newtown Bee. Archived from the original on 2008-06-24. Retrieved 2008-10-29.
  10. ^ "Hattertown Historic District Commission". Archived from the original on 2007-02-09. Retrieved 2008-10-29.

External links

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Felicia Dorethea Hemans - Casabianca

Felicia Dorethea Hemans, Casabianca

Felicia Dorethea Hemans, Casabianca

Casabianca
by Felicia Dorethea Hemans
August 1826

 The boy stood on the burning deck
  Whence all but he had fled;
The flame that lit the battle's wreck
  Shone round him o'er the dead.

Yet beautiful and bright he stood,
  As born to rule the storm;
A creature of heroic blood,
  A proud, though child-like form.

The flames rolled on–he would not go
  Without his Father's word;
That father, faint in death below,
  His voice no longer heard.

He called aloud–'say, Father, say
  If yet my task is done?'
He knew not that the chieftain lay
  Unconscious of his son.

'Speak, father!' once again he cried,
  'If I may yet be gone!'
And but the booming shots replied,
  And fast the flames rolled on.

Upon his brow he felt their breath,
  And in his waving hair,
And looked from that lone post of death
  In still yet brave despair.

And shouted but once more aloud,
  'My father! must I stay?'
While o'er him fast, through sail and shroud,
  The wreathing fires made way.

They wrapt the ship in splendour wild,
  They caught the flag on high,
And streamed above the gallant child,
  Like banners in the sky.

There came a burst of thunder sound–
   The boy–oh! where was he?
Ask of the winds that far around
  With fragments strewed the sea!–

With mast, and helm, and pennon fair,
  That well had borne their part–
But the noblest thing which perished there
  Was that young faithful heart.


Felicia Dorethea Hemans (c.1793-1835), August 1826
This poem is written in ballad meter and rhymes abab



Felicia Dorethea Hemans, poet

Felicia Hemans

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felicia_Hemans
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Born25 September 1793
Liverpool, England
Died16 May 1835 (aged 41)
Dublin, Ireland
OccupationPoet
NationalityBritish
PeriodLate Romantic
GenresPoetry

Ancestry

Felicia Heman's paternal grandfather was George Browne of Passage, County Cork, Ireland; her maternal grandparents were Elizabeth Haydock Wagner (d. 1814) of Lancashire and Benedict Paul Wagner (1718–1806), wine importer at 9 Wolstenholme Square, Liverpool. Family legend gave the Wagners a Venetian origin; family heraldry an Austrian one. The Wagners' country address was North Hall near Wigan; they sent two sons to Eton College. Of three daughters only Felicity married; her husband George Browne joined his father-in-law's business and succeeded him as Tuscan and imperial consul in Liverpool. [2]

Early life and works

Felicia Dorothea Browne was the fourth of six Browne children (three boys and three girls) to survive infancy. Of her two sisters, Elizabeth died about 1807 at the age of eighteen, and Harriett Mary Browne (1798–1858) married first the Revd T. Hughes, then the Revd W. Hicks Owen. Harriett collaborated musically with Felicia and later edited her complete works (7 vols. with memoir, 1839). Her eldest brother, Lt-Gen. Sir Thomas Henry Browne KCH (1787–1855), had a distinguished career in the army; her second brother, George Baxter CB, served in the Royal Welch Fusiliers 23rd foot, and became a magistrate at Kilkenny in 1830 and Chief Commissioner of Police in Ireland in 1831; and her third brother, Claude Scott Browne (1795–1821), became deputy assistant commissary-general in Upper Canada. [3]

Felicia was born in Liverpool, a granddaughter of the Venetian consul in that city. Her father's business soon brought the family to Denbighshire in North Wales, where she spent her youth. They made their home near Abergele and St. Asaph (Flintshire), and it is clear that she came to regard herself as Welsh by adoption, later referring to Wales as "Land of my childhood, my home and my dead". Her first poems, dedicated to the Prince of Wales, were published in Liverpool in 1808, when she was only fourteen, arousing the interest of no less a person than Percy Bysshe Shelley, who briefly corresponded with her. She quickly followed them up with "England and Spain" [1808] and "The domestic affections", published in 1812, the year of her marriage to Captain Alfred Hemans, an Irish army officer some years older than herself. The marriage took her away from Wales, to Daventry in Northamptonshireuntil 1814.

During their first six years of marriage, Felicia gave birth to five sons, including Charles Isidore Hemans, and then the couple separated. Marriage had not, however, prevented her from continuing her literary career, with several volumes of poetry being published by the respected firm of John Murray in the period after 1816, beginning with "The Restoration of the works of art to Italy" (1816) and "Modern Greece" (1817). "Tales and historic scenes" was the collection which came out in 1819, the year of their separation.

Later life

From 1831 onwards, she lived in Dublin, where her younger brother had settled, and her poetic output continued. Her major collections, including The Forest Sanctuary (1825), Records of Woman and Songs of the Affections(1830) were immensely popular, especially with female readers. Her last books, sacred and profane, are the substantive Scenes and Hymns of Life and National Lyrics, and Songs for Music. She was by now a well-known literary figure, highly regarded by contemporaries such as Wordsworth, and with a popular following in the United States and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. When she died of dropsy, Wordsworth and Walter Savage Landor composed memorial verses in her honour. She is buried in St. Ann's Church, Dawson Street.

Legacy

Felicia Dorethea Hemans, poet
Felicia Hemans' works appeared in nineteen individual books during her lifetime. After her death in 1835 they were republished widely, usually as collections of individual lyrics and not the longer, annotated works and integrated series that made up her books. For surviving women poets, like Britons Caroline Norton and Letitia Elizabeth Landon, Americans Lydia Sigourneyand Frances Harper, the French Amable Tastu and German Annette von Droste-Hülshoff, and others, she was a valued model, or (for Elizabeth Barrett Browning) a troubling predecessor; and for male poets including Tennyson and Longfellow, an influence less acknowledged. To many readers she offered a woman's voice confiding a woman's trials; to others a lyricism apparently consonant with Victorian chauvinism and sentimentality. Among the works she valued most were the unfinished "Superstition and Revelation" and the pamphlet "The Sceptic," which sought an Anglicanism more attuned to world religions and women's experiences. In her most successful book, "Records of Woman" (1828), she chronicles the lives of women, both famous and anonymous.

Hemans' poem The Homes of England (1827) is the origin of the phrase stately home in English. The first line of the poem runs, "The stately Homes of England".

Despite her illustrious admirers, her stature as a serious poet gradually declined, partly due to her success in the literary marketplace. Her poetry was considered morally exemplary, and was often assigned to schoolchildren; as a result, Hemans came to be seen a poet for children rather than taken seriously on the basis of her entire body of work. A jocular reference by Sakiin The Toys of Peace suggests simultaneously that she was a household word and that Saki did not take her seriously. Schoolchildren in the U. S. were still being taught The Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers in New England ("The breaking waves dashed high/On a stern and rock-bound coast...") in the middle of the 20th century. But by the 21st century, The Stately Homes of England refers to Noël Coward's parody, not to the once-famous poem it parodied, and Felicia Hemans was remembered popularly for her poem, "Casabianca".

However, Hemans' critical reputation has been re-examined in recent years. Her work has resumed a role in standard anthologies and in classrooms and seminars and literary studies, especially in the U. S. It is likely that further poems will be familiar to new readers, such as "The Image in Lava," "Evening Prayer at a Girls' School," "I Dream of All Things Free," "Night-Blowing Flowers," "Properzia Rossi," "A Spirit's Return," "The Bride of the Greek Isle," "The Wife of Asdrubal," "The Widow of Crescentius," "The Last Song of Sappho," and "Corinne at the Capitol."

Felicia Dorethea Hemans, Casabianca
Casabianca

First published in August 1826 the poem Casabianca (also known as The Boy stood on the Burning Deck)[1] by Felicia Hemans depicts Louis de Casabianca who perished in the Battle of the Nile. The poem was very popular from the 1850s on and was memorized in elementary schools for literary practice. The poem depicts what happened on the ship the Orient as Commander Louis de Casabianca died due to refusing to flee his post. Other poetic figures such as Elizabeth Bishop and Samuel Butler allude to the poem in their own works.

"Speak, father!' once again he cried, 'If I may yet be gone!" And but the
booming shots replied, And fast the flames rolled on. [4]

The poem is sung in ballad form (abab) and consists of a boy asking his father whether he had fulfilled his duties, as the ship continues to burn after the magazine catches fire. Martin Gardner and Michael R. Turner made modern day parodies that were much more upbeat and consisted of boys stuffing their faces with peanuts and breads. This contrasted sharply with the solemn image created in Casabianca as Hemans wrote it.

England and Spain, or, Valor and Patriotism

Her second book, England and Spain, or, Valor and Patriotism, was published in 1808 and was a narrative poem honoring her brother and his military service in the Peninsular War. The poem called for an end of the tyranny of Napoleon Bonaparte and for a long lasting peace after the war. The poem is very patriotic towards Great Britain as seen in Heman's multiple references to "Albion" which is an older name for the isles of Great Britain.

"For this thy noble sons have spread alarms, And bade
the zones resound with BRITAIN's arms!" [5]

It is seen throughout this poem that Felicia Hemans is alarmed with the thought of war but her overall pride of nationality overcome this fear. She saw all of the fighting as useless bloodshed and a waste of human life. "England and Spain" was used by her to spread her message across Europe, that the wars were senseless and that peace should resume.

Female suicide in Hemans' works

In many of Hemans' works, a choice is made by several female characters to take their own lives rather than suffer the social, political, and personal consequences of their compromised situations. The social context in which Hemans was writing was not largely conducive to the writing of women, as many modern readers might assume according to the poet's success. Instead, women writers were often torn between a choice of home or the pursuit of a literary career. [6] Hemans herself was able to balance both roles without much public ridicule, but left hints of discontent through the themes of feminine death in her writing. [7] The suicides of women in Hemans' poetry dwell on the same social issue that was confronted both culturally and personally during Hemans' life: the choice of caged domestication or freedom of thought and expression. [8]

'The Bride of the Greek Isle', 'The Sicilian Captive', 'The Last Song of Sappho', and 'Indian Woman's Death Song' are some of the most notable of Hemans' works involving women's suicides. Each poem portrays a heroine who is untimely torn from her home by a masculine force- such as pirates, Vikings, and unrequited lovers- and forced to make the decision to accept her new confines or command control over the situation. None of the heroines are complacent with the tragedies that befall them, and the women ultimately take their own lives in either a final grasp for power and expression or means to escape victimization. [9] The true reasons for the recurring femicide in Hemans' poetry collections can only be found in readers' personal interpretations, giving speculation to Hemans' life and cultural context.

Selected works

On the Restoration of the Works of Art to Italy
Hymns on the Works of Nature, for the Use of Children
Records of Woman: With Other Poems
The Better Land
Casabianca
Corinne at the Capitol
Evening Prayer at a Girl's School
A Farewell to Abbotsford
The Funeral Day of Sir Walter Scott
Hymn by the Sick-bed of a Mother
Kindred Hearts
The Last Song of Sappho
Lines Written in the Memoirs of Elizabeth Smith
The Rock of Cader Idris
Stanzas on the Late National Calamity, The Death of the Princess Charlotte
Stanzas To the Memory of George III
Thoughts During Sickness: Intellectual Powers
To the Eye
To the New-Born
Woman on the Field of Battle

Further reading

"Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature," 3rd ed., 4: 351-60 (2000)
"Oxford Dictionary of National Biography," 26: 274-77 (2004)
"Felicia Hemans: Selected Poems, Letters, Reception Materials," ed. Susan J. Wolfson (2000)
"Felicia Hemans: Selected Poems, Prose, and Letters," ed. Gary Kelly (2002)
Emma Mason, "Women Poets of the Nineteenth Century" (2006)
"Felicia Hemans: Reimagining Poetry in the Nineteenth Century," ed. Nanora Sweet & Julie Melnyk (2001)
Paula Feldman, "The Poet and the Profits: Felicia Hemans and the Literary Marketplace," "Keats-Shelley Journal" 46 (1996): 148-76
Peter W. Trinder, "Mrs Hemans," U Wales Press (1984)



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Robert W. Service - The Cremation of Sam McGee



From The Songs of a Sourdough

 "The Spell of the Yukon and Other Verses"

 The Cremation of Sam McGee
by Robert W. Service, 1907


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.

 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 hold till I’m chilled clean through to the bone.
Yet ‘taint 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 rolled down 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 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 W. Service (1874-1958)
Maps of Lake LaBarge






Types of Sternwheelers, Paddleboats, and Steamboats





-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Introduction to Poem
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Robert W. Service, a Canadian poet and novelist, was known for his ballads of the Yukon. He wrote this narrative poem which is presented here because it is an outstanding example of how sensory stimuli are emphasized and it has a surprise ending.

Robert William Service was born in Preston, England, on January 16, 1874. He emigrated to Canada at the age of twenty, in 1894, and settled for a short time on Vancouver Island. He was employed by the Canadian Bank of Commerce in Victoria, B.C., and was later transferred to Whitehorse and then to Dawson in the Yukon. In all, he spent eight years in the Yukon and saw and experienced the difficult times of the miners, trappers, and hunters that he has presented to us in verse.

During the Balkan War of 1912-13, Service was a war correspondent to the Toronto Star. He served this paper in the same capacity during World War I, also serving two years as an ambulance driver in the Canadian Army medical corps. He returned to Victoria for a time during World War II, but later lived in retirement on the French Riviera, where he died on September 14, 1958, in Monte Carlo.

Sam McGee was a real person, a customer at the Bank of Commerce where Service worked. The Alice May was a real boat, the Olive May, a derelict on Lake Laberge.

Anyone who has experienced the bitterness of cold weather and what it can do to a man will empathize with Sam McGee’s feelings as expressed by Robert Service in this poem.
The Bard of the Yukon, Robert W. Service

---

 Wikipedia - The Reality Behind the Fiction

 More Poems by Robert W. Service - The Poet's Corner

 ---
Discussion of Poem


Introduction

Robert W. Service wrote a lot of poems about the Gold Rush that happened in Alaska and northwestern Canada at the turn of the 19th century. "The Cremation of Sam McGee," however, is probably the most famous of all. It was published in 1907 in a collection called Songs of a Sourdough. Service was born in Scotland, but when he wrote the poem, he had been living in the Yukon (in northwestern Canada) for several years. He based "The Cremation of Sam McGee" on the places he saw, the people he met, and the stories he heard while he lived there. Since it’s publication, the poem has been popular with generations of readers, who love its combination of black humor, adventure, and captivating descriptions of the lives of Yukon prospectors.

Why Should I Care?

There are lots of reasons to love "The Cremation of Sam McGee," but we think its mostly worth your time because it is unusual and super fun. It’s got action, horror, excitement, and a killer punch line. Now, here at Shmoop, we like the fancy poems too, but we especially love an author who can make a poem exciting, accessible, and catchy. We bet that once you read this poem a couple times, you’ll find the words and the images getting stuck in your head. In a way, it’s like a great pop song: short, relatable, and fun to hear again and again. There’s no highfalutin’ philosophizing or super-hard language to get in the way of your enjoyment. If you’re looking for a poem that entertains all ages and does it in style, you definitely don’t need to look any farther than this one.

Summary

The poem is about a freezing-cold winter trip in the Yukon, back in the days of the Klondike Gold Rush. The poem’s speaker tells us a story about his friend, Sam McGee, who freezes to death on the trail.

Sam hates the cold and doesn’t want to be buried in the frozen ground. So, as his dying wish, he asks our speaker to cremate him (which is a fancy way of saying "burn his corpse"). The speaker promises he will, but it’s tough to find a way to do it in the dead of winter. He ends up having a lousy trip, carrying Sam’s frozen corpse until he finds a spot to burn Sam’s body.

He starts to burn Sam, but is pretty grossed out by the whole thing. Then, when he goes to see if Sam is "cooked," he finds his friend alive and well and cozy! Apparently Sam just needed to defrost a little, and the raging fire did the trick.



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Great Quotes and Opening Lines





“Autobiographies of great nations are written in three manuscripts – a book of deeds, a book of words and a book of art.  Of the three, I would choose the latter as truest testimony.”

      Sir Kenneth Smith, Great Civilisations




The sun that brief December day
Rose cheerless over hills of gray...

      John Greenleaf Whittier, Snowbound




And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

      TS Eliot, Little Gidding




Hold to the Now,
The Here, to
Which all Future plunges
To the Past.

      James Joyce, Ulysses





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Percy Bysshe Shelley - To A Skylark


Hail to thee, blithe spirit!
     Bird thou never wert,
          That from heaven, or near it
     Pourest thy full heart
In profuse strain of unpremeditated art.

Higher still and higher
     From the earth thou springest
          Like a cloud of fire;
     The blue deep thou wingest,
And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.

In the golden lightning
     Of the sunken sun,
          O'er which clouds are brightning,
    Thou dost float and run;
Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun.

The pale purple even
     Melts around thy flight;
          Like a star of heaven,
     In the broad daylight
Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight.

Keen as are the arrows
     Of that silver sphere,
          Whose intense lamp narrows
     In the white dawn clear,
Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there.

All the earth and air
     With thy voice is loud,
          As, when night is bare,
     From one lonely cloud
The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is overflow'd.

What thou art we know not:,
     What is most like thee?
     From rainbow clouds there flow not
          Drops so bright to see,
As from thy presence showers a rain of melody.

Like a poet hidden,
     In the light of thought,
          Singing hymns unbidden,
     Till the world is wrought
To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not;

Like a high-born maiden
     In a palace-tower,
          Soothing her love-laden
     Soul in secret hour
With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower;

Like a glow-worm golden
     In a dell of dew,
          Scattering unbeholden
     Its aerial hue
Among the flowers and grass, which screen it from the view;

Like a rose embower'd
     In its own green leaves,
          By warm winds deflower'd,
     Till the scent it gives
Makes faint with too much sweet these heavy-winged thieves:

Sound of vernal showers
     On the twinkling grass,
          Rain-awaken'd flowers,
     All that ever was
Joyous, and clear, and fresh, thy music doth surpass.

Teach us, sprite or bird,
     What sweet thoughts are thine;
          I have never heard
     Praise of love or wine
That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine;

Chorus hymeneal,
     Or triumphal chaunt,
          Match'd with thine would be all
     But an empty vaunt -
A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want.

What objects are the fountains
     Of thy happy strain?
          What fields, or waves, or mountains?
     What shapes of sky or plain?
What love of thine own kind? what ignorance of pain?

With thy clear keen joyance
     Languor cannot be -
          Shadow of annoyance
     Never came near thee:
Thou lovest - but ne'er knew love's sad satiety.

Waking or asleep,
     Thou of death must deem
          Things more true and deep
     Than we mortals dream,
Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream?

We look before and after,
     And pine for what is not;
          Our sincerest laughter
     With some pain is fraught;
Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.

Yet if we could scorn
     Hate, and pride, and fear;
          If we were things born
     Not to shed a tear,
I know not how thy joy we ever should come near.

Better than all measures
     Of delightful sound -
          Better than all treasures
     That in books are found -
Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground!

Teach me half the gladness
     That thy brain must know,
          Such harmonious madness
     From my lips would flow,
The world should listen then, as I am listening  now!


Percy Bysshe Shelley (June, 1820)



 
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