[ASMR] 'The Cremation of Sam McGee'
Description
Vocal Characteristics
Language
EnglishVoice Age
Young Adult (18-35)Accents
North American (Canadian-General) North American (General)Transcript
Note: Transcripts are generated using speech recognition software and may contain errors.
This is a whispered recording of the cremation of Sam McGee. By Robert Service. From his collection Sons of a Sour Dough. There are strange things done in the midnight sun by the men whom oil for gold. The Arctic trails off their secret tales that would make your blood run cold. The Northern Lights have seen queer sights, but the queer ist they ever did see was that night on the march of Lake LaBarge, 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 around the pole. God only knows he was always cold, but the land of gold seemed to hold him like a spell that we'd often say in his home leeway that he'd sooner live in ales on a Christmas Day. We were mushing are way over the DOS and trail. Talk of your cold through the parkas. Fold it stabbed like a driven nail. If our eyes were closed in, the lashes froze till sometimes we couldn't see. It wasn't much fun, but the only one toe 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 overhead were dancing heel and toe. He turned to me, and CAPP says he will cash in this trip, I guess. And if I do, um, asking that you won't refuse. My last request really seemed so low that I couldn't say no. Then he says with a sort of moan, It's the curse of cold and it's got right hold till I'm chilled, clean through to the bone. Yet it ain't being dead. It's my awful dread of the icy grave that pains. So I want you to swear that foul affair you'll cremate my last remains. Well, a pals. Last need is a thing to heat, so I swore I would not fail, and we started on the streak of dawn. But God, he looked ghastly, pale. He crouched on the sleigh and engraved 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 make tax your brown and brains, but you promise 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 loan file line while the Huskies round in a ring. How old? Out their woes to the homeless knows God how I loathed the thing. And every day that quiet clay seemed too 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 that often sing to the hateful thing, and it harkened with a grin until I came to the Marge of Lake LaBarge and a derelict there lay. It was gender in the ice, but I saw in a tryst 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 crematorium. Some planks I tour from the cabin floor and I let the boiler fire some cold life 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 borrowed a hole in the glowing coal, and I stuffed in Sam McGee that I made a hike for. I didn't like to hear in sizzle, so and the heavens scowled and the Huskies held and the wind began to blow. It was icy cold, but the hot sweat rolled down my cheeks, and I don't know why. On the greasy smoke in, an inky cloak went streaking down the sky. I do not know how long in the snow wrestled with grizzly fear, but the stars came out and they danced about there 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 they're sad. Sam, looking cool and calm in the heart of the furnace roar. Any war smile, you could see a mile and he said, Please close that door. It's fine in here, but I greatly feel you let in the cold and storm since I left Plumtree down in Tennessee. That's the first time I've been warm. There are strange things done in the midnight sun by the men whom oil 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 queer ist they ever did see was that night on the Marge of Lake LaBarge. I cremated Sam McGee.