Nor days nor things diurnal,
Only the sleep eternal
In an enternal night."
--- Algernon Charles Swinburne "The Garden of Proserpine"
+ -- Algernon Charles Swinburne "The Garden of Proserpine"
+%
+In a field
+I am the absence
+of field.
+This is
+always the case.
+Wherever I am
+I am what is missing.
+
+When I walk
+I part the air
+and always
+the air moves in
+to fill the spaces
+where my body's been.
+
+We all have reasons
+for moving.
+I move
+to keep things whole.
+ -- Mark Strand "Keeping Things Whole"
+%
+Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you
+Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
+And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
+Must ask permission to know it and be known.
+The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
+I have made this place around you,
+If you leave it you may come back again, saying Here.
+No two trees are the same to Raven.
+No two branches are the same to Wren.
+If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
+You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
+Where you are. You must let it find you.
+ -- David Wagoner "Lost"
+%
+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;
+Then 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 "The Cremation of Sam McGee"
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