True Stories of The Yukon Territory

                                                (Circa 1900)

Loneliness-Wikipedia - - Loneliness is an unpleasant feeling in which a person feels a strong sense of emptiness and solitude resulting from inadequate levels of social relationships.

                       Loneliness in The Yukon

Riley Lincoln

West Palm Beach, Fla

February 2012

In the darkness of a cold Yukon night

  With the moon only half bright

Your body shaking with the cold and fright

  All you can see is the snow

And the Northern Lights all aglow

  The brightness of the Northern Lights

Make the mountains look liker

  They are dancing in delight

You really believe there is gold

  But the lonliness you feel

Makes you wonder why

  Your soul you have sold

Is the loneliness from a half-bright moon

  Really worth nuggets of gold

If only a wolf would howl

  Into the cold, cold night

Maybe it would help maker things right

  The loneliness has a grip on my soul

It's making me forget my real goal

  I'm packed in the snow

The wind is starting to blow

  Temperature's more than twenty below

The only warmth I have left is in my heart

  Is for the lady I love so much

Down in Plumtree in the state of Tennessee......

If only my dad, Sam McGee

  Hadn't left that map

Laying around for me to see...

I knew the map I should not read

  Then I discovered my father had taken the lead

Now the map and thoughts of gold

  Are burned into my brain

When I think of it

  I feel I'm going insane

When I go to sleep at night

  And when the north wind blows just right

I hear the Yukon calling me

  I left my girl and went to see

To find my gold and bring it back to Tennessee.

This is where the big wind blows

  Colder than man knows

This is where the big gold grows

  Through over a thousand miles of mountains and snow

Pine trees and woe

  

Now the great white silence 

  Is getting to me

I don't think I have the will in my soul

  To go anymore

Now here I am buried in the snow

  As lonely and cold as a man can be

Instead of being warm with my woman

  In Plumtree, down in the state of Tennessee

The curse of this terrible, beautiful place

  The illusion of gold

Laying around on te ground

  It may have just been a dream

Maybe it was just to break men's will

  Break it 'til it could not

Be broke no more

  I'll never get back to Plumtree

With my loved one to be

  

My time has come, Dad, I'm through

  I will try to find the barge on Lake LaMarge

So I can be warm with you

Note: Thank You Robert W. Service

              1874-1958

    for your fine writing of

"The Cremation of Sam McGee"

           Your Friend, Riley