Latest / The Daily Poem / Robert Service's "The Law of the Yukon"

Transcript

Robert Service's "The Law of the Yukon" · The Daily Poem

• 0:00
  [music]
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to The Daily Poem, a podcast from Goldberry Studios.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Sean Johnson, and today is Wednesday, July 22nd, 2026.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: Today's poem is by Robert Service, and it's called The Law of the Yukon.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: If you are a subscriber,
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: then you heard yesterday's poem,
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: which was also by Service,
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: about the men that don't fit in,
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: these wandering souls that never quite find their sticking place in society.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: They are often then drawn to wild places,
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: and though they be strong or bold,
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: they still end as failures in the grand scheme of things.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: Today's poem is the same but different.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: Today's poem personifies the voice of the Yukon wilderness,
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: and it expresses the absolute necessity of being strong and bold and brave when
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: If one is going to venture into this wild country,
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: unlike those men who can't find their place in society
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: and end up circumstantial failures,
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: the men who come to the Yukon and are unsuited to its difficulties,
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: to its harshnesses, to its demands will fail immediately.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: And in issuing this warning, Service does something remarkable.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: He deromanticizes the Western wilderness, but somehow simultaneously heightens its romance.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: He raises the standard,
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: and by doing so,
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: challenges anyone who might not be sure that They were up to the task.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: It awakens a desire to find out if you are equal to the challenge of this wild place.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: It is precisely the thing that is beyond you or too much for you that can live on as
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: an exaggerated ideal in your imagination.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: So one interesting question then by the time the poem is finished is when Service
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: or his speaker here asks,
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: Indicates that men of questionable character and quality will be weeded out
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: by this territory.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: Is that true?
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: Are we meant to take it at face value?
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: Or is that in itself a kind of romantic, wishful thinking?
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: You can be the judge.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: Here's the poem, The Law of the Yukon.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: This is the law of the Yukon, and ever she makes it plain.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: Send not your foolish and feeble,
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: Send me your strong and your sane,
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: Strong for the red rage of battle, Sane for I harry them sore.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: Send me men girt for the combat,
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: Men who are grit to the core,
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: Swift as the panther in triumph,
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: Fierce as the bear in defeat,
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: Sired of a bulldog parent, Stealed in the furnace heat.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: Send me the best of your breeding,
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: Lend me your chosen ones, Them will I take to my bosom, Them will I call my sons.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: Them will I gild with my treasure,
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: Them will I glut with my meat,
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: But the others, the misfits, the failures, I trample under my feet.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: Dissolute, damned,
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: and despairful,
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: Crippled and palsied and slain,
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: Ye would send me the spawn of your gutters, Go take back your spawn again.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: Wild and wide are my borders,
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: Stern as death is my sway,
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: From my ruthless throne I have ruled alone For a million years and a day,
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: Hugging my mighty treasure,
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: Waiting for man to come,
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: Till he swept like a turbid torrent, And after him swept the scum.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: The pallid pimp of the deadline,
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: The enervit of the pen, One by one I weeded them out, For all that I sought was men.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: One by one I dismayed them,
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: Frighting them sore with my glooms,
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: One by one I betrayed them Unto my manifold dooms.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: Drowned them like rats in my rivers,
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: Starved them like curs on my plains,
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: Rotted the flesh that was left them,
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: Poisoned the blood in their veins,
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: Burst with my winter upon them,
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: Searing forever their sight,
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: Lashed them with fungus white faces, Whimpering wild in the night.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: Staggering blind through the storm whirl,
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: stumbling mad through the snow,
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: frozen stiff in the ice pack,
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: brittle and bent like a bow,
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: featureless,
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: formless,
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: forsaken,
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: scented by wolves in their flight,
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: left for the wind to make music through ribs that are glittering white,
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: gnawing the black crust of failure,
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: searching the pit of despair,
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: crooking the toe in the trigger, trying to patter a prayer.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: Going outside with an escort,
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: raving with lips all of foam,
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: writing a check for a million,
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: driveling feebly of home,
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: lost like a louse in the burning,
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: or else in the tented town,
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: seeking a drunkard's solace,
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: sinking and sinking down,
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: steeped in the slime at the bottom,
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: dead to a decent world,
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: Lost mid the human flotsam,
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: Far on the frontier hurled,
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: In the camp at the bend of the river,
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: With its dozen saloons aglare,
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: Its gambling dens a riot,
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: Its gramophones all a-blare,
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: Crimpt with the crimes of a city,
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: Sin ridden and bridled with lies,
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: In the hush of my mountain vastness,
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: In the flush of my midnight skies,
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: Plague spots,
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: yet tools of my purpose,
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: So natheless I suffer them thrive,
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: Crushing my weak in their clutches, That only my strong may survive.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: But the others,
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: the men of my metal,
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: The men who establish my fame,
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: Unto its ultimate issue,
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: Winning me honor,
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: not shame,
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: Searching my uttermost valleys,
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: Fighting each step as they go,
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: Shooting the wrath of my rapids,
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: Scaling my ramparts of snow,
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: Ripping the guts of my mountains,
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: Looting the beds of my creeks,
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: Them will I take to my bosom, And speak as a mother speaks.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: I am the land that listens,
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: I am the land that broods,
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: Steeped in eternal beauty,
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: crystalline waters and woods,
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: Long have I waited lonely,
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: shunned as a thing accursed,
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: Monstrous, moody, pathetic, the last of the lands and the first.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: Visioning campfires of twilight,
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: sad with the longing forlorn,
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: Feeling my womb or pregnant with the seed of cities unborn,
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: Wild and wide are my borders,
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: stern as death is my sway,
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I wait for the men who will win me, and I will not be one in a day.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I will not be won by weaklings, subtle, suave,
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: and mild, but by men with the hearts of Vikings and the simple faith of a child.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: Desperate, strong,
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: and resistless,
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: unthrottled by fear or defeat,
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: them will I gild with my treasure, them will I glut with my meat.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: Lofty I stand from each sister land,
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: patient and wearily wise,
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: with the weight of a world of sadness in my quiet, passionless eyes.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: Dreaming alone of a people,
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: dreaming alone of a day, when men shall not rape my riches and curse me and go away.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: Making a bod of my bounty,
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: fouling the hand that gave,
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: till I rise in my wrath and I sweep on their path and I stamp them into a grave.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: Dreaming of men who will bless me,
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: of women esteeming me good, of children born in my borders of radiant motherhood.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: Of cities leaping to stature,
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: Of fame like a flag unfurled,
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: As I pour the tide of my riches In the eager lap of the world.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: This is the law of the Yukon,
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: That only the strong shall thrive,
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: That surely the weak shall perish, And only the fit survive.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: Dissolute,
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: damned and despairful,
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: Crippled and palsied and slain,
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: This is the will of the Yukon, Lo, how she makes it plain.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: This has been The Daily Poem.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: We'll be back tomorrow with another subscriber poem and here on the main channel on Friday.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: Between now and then,
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: you can find loads and loads,
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: a mother load, one might say if one were from the Yukon, of poems.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: At your fingertips,
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: ready to listen to at dailypoempod.substack.com and tab over to our archives.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's also a great place to share your thoughts about each day's poem and
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: to subscribe and become supporters of The Daily Poem.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: For all of us at Goldberry Studios, I'm Sean Johnson wishing you happy reading.