A Ribband of Red, a Rose of Shame

by Mark Steyn
Steyn's Sunday Poem
January 12, 2020

https://www.steynonline.com/9979/a-ribband-of-red-a-rose-of-shame

Welcome to this weekend's entry in our Mark Steyn Club anthology of video poetry - The Low-Down White by Robert W Service, recorded live before an audience from the United States, Canada, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, India and elsewhere on the recent Mark Steyn Cruise.

Robert W Service is, of course, the Bard of the Yukon, beloved by millions for "The Shooting of Dan McGrew" and "The Cremation of Sam McGee", which are as well known as any poems of the twentieth century, albeit held in generally low regard by the critics. All over the world, you'll find people who recognize instantly the first lines of each poem:

A bunch of the boys were whooping it up...

There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold...

Indeed, there are - and today's piece is about some of the less attractive things a man can be driven to live with on the nights when the boys are whooping it up. The Low-Down White comes from the same collection as Dan McGrew and Sam McGee, Songs of a Sourdough, published in 1907, and is a particular favorite of mine in its spare, economical sketch of a man's life. In this video I discuss the background to the work and its author, and then give it a go. To watch The Low-Down White, please click here and log-in.

If you'd like to catch up on earlier poems in the series, you can find them on our Sunday Poems home page. As with Tales for Our Time and our music specials, we're archiving our video poetry in an easy-to-access Netflix-style tile format that we hope makes it the work of moments to prowl around and alight on something that piques your interest of a weekend, whether Kipling or Keats. One other bonus of Steyn Club membership is that you can enjoy much of our content in whichever is your preferred form - video, audio, text. So, if you'd rather hear me read The Low-Down White off-camera, please click here.

Steyn's Sunday Poem is made possible by members of The Mark Steyn Club. We launched the Steyn Club over two years ago, and in this our third season I'm immensely heartened by all the longtime SteynOnline regulars - from Fargo to Fiji, Madrid to Malaysia, West Virginia to Witless Bay - who've signed up to be a part of it. Membership in The Mark Steyn Club also comes with non-poetic benefits, including:

~Our latest audio adventure in Tales for Our Time, and its thirty-one thrilling predecessors;
~Other audio series on pertinent topics, such as our recent nightly installments of Climate Change: The Facts;
~Exclusive Steyn Store member pricing on over 40 books, mugs, T-shirts, and other products;
~The opportunity to engage in live Clubland Q&A sessions with yours truly (such as last Wednesday's and this coming Friday's);
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~Advance booking for my live appearances around the world, including exclusive members-only events such as The Mark Steyn Christmas Show;
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~The opportunity to join me and my guests on our annual Mark Steyn Cruise;
~and the chance to support our print, audio and video ventures as they wing their way around the planet.

To become a member of The Mark Steyn Club, please click here. And for our special Gift Membership see here. Oh, and by the way, that Steyn cruise always includes a live performance of a Sunday Poem.

One other benefit to Club Membership is our Comment Club privileges. So, if you like or dislike this feature, or consider my poem reading a bust, then feel free to comment away below. Please do stay on topic on all our comment threads, because that's the way to keep them focused and readable. With that caution, have at it (in verse, if you wish).

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13 Reader Comments

Mathew Cusma • Jan 14, 2020 at 16:53

In one of those odd coincidences, I was reminded of and revisited a handful of Robert Service's poems - likely for the first time in decades - just a few days before I received email notice of this post to SteynOnline. As for Mr. Service's poetry skills, while I am no poet myself, it seems to me it would require much more skill to tell a coherent story in true rhyme, tum-tee-tum fashion than it would be to write a speech for Joe Biden. Thanks for the laugh, Mark!

Dave A • Jan 13, 2020 at 17:39

Any poem that rhymes and scans is held in low regard by current critics. To write poetry like Kipling or Service takes an extensive vocabulary and an ear for the rhythm and music of sentences. Since hardly anyone has such attributes any more it is easier and safer to mock those who do.

This a a rather dark selection but a good choice to counter the perceptions of those who know only of Dan McGrew and Sam McGee. There are some poems in the same vein from "Rhymes of a Red Cross Man". Service wasn't considered fit for combat duty in WW I so volunteered to be a stretcher bearer for the Red Cross, carrying the wounded from the battlefield to aid stations. It was extremely dangerous and stressful duty. One of his poems, "The Stretcher Bearer" seems to speak straight from the heart and reflect the despair he must have felt.

"My stretcher is one scarlet stain.
And as I tries to scrape it clean,
I tells you wot - I'm sick with pain,
For all I've 'erd, for all I've seen."

Was he a great poet? Probably not, nor did he ever claim to be, but at least he found a publisher and an audience. He seemed satisfied to know his better works were enjoyed by a great many people.

Bob Belvedere • Jan 13, 2020 at 17:26

My favorite Robert Service poem, an excerpt:

The Concert Singer

I'm one of these haphazard chaps
Who sit in cafes drinking;
A most improper taste, perhaps,
Yet pleasant, to my thinking.
For, oh, I hate discord and strife;
I'm sadly, weakly human;
And I do think the best of life
Is wine and song and woman.

CrossBorderGal • Jan 12, 2020 at 22:52

THANK YOU, Mark, for "reprising" this performance. We enjoyed it on the cruise and were hoping it would eventually appear in your video poetry archive for a replay, enhanced by your valuable introduction to R.W. Service and the poem's context.
The Rochets from BC

Mark replies:

Thank you, CBG. The live-on-stage poem is one of my favorite/favourite parts of the cruise, so I'm glad you liked it, too.

Phil Hopman • Jan 12, 2020 at 18:28

Robert Service! Thank you Mark. In about 1985 my Mom turned me on to Service with "The Ballad of Blasphemous Bill". I have read very much of his work to my boys, who were all born after her death, alas.

Mark replies:

Your mom made a good choice, Phil. "Blasphemous Bill" is a pretty great place to start.

Joseph W.

Phil Hopman • Jan 13, 2020 at 13:59

You have excellent taste....I lived in Alaska for a while, and that's what got me to finally read Service.

For anyone who hasn't tried it..."The Ballad of the Black Fox Skin" is another good one in the "wicked things" category. I also love "The Lost Master," which I read when I lose a really good boss.

Todd Lewis • Jan 12, 2020 at 17:13

Not that anybody cares, but we used to frequently go on church group camping trips when we were young and single. A good friend of mine made it a tradition to read "The Cremation of Sam McGee" around the campfire. Great fun. Everyone loved it.

Elisa Angel

Todd Lewis • Jan 13, 2020 at 16:14

You are not alone. I committed "The Cremation of Sam McGee" to memory because my grandfather loved it so. Grandpa discovered Robert W. Service poems while working in Alaska in the 1940s. He and I would read the poems out loud to each other from his beaten-up copy of "The Spell of the Yukon and Other Verses". I recited that poem once for a speech class in high school. My classmates -- all girls -- loved it. P.S. Grandma let me have the old, beaten-up book when Grandpa passed away. It's one of my treasures.

Greg the Kiwi • Jan 12, 2020 at 15:23

I've been waiting for a replay of this fabulous video poem having been there on the ship of Steyniacs , submersed in the revelry of the reading , and to enjoy it relaxing in summer break downunder is an absolute treat, thanks Mark and team Steyn , May we have another goodie on SteynshipRome !

Mark replies:

Thank you, Greg. Very much appreciated. Look forward to seeing you on the Med.

Elisa Angel • Jan 12, 2020 at 14:09

Service's "The Reckoning" should be engraved on the US Treasury Building. Wouldn't it be something to read "For the debit side's increasing in a most alarming way" while walking by? It's one of my favorite poems. I think about it when I waste money, waste time, do something I shouldn't have done, or I didn't do something I should have done. "Time has got a little bill -- get wise while yet you may. . . " I encourage you all to read it -- it's just three stanzas.

Walt Trimmer • Jan 12, 2020 at 13:26

To continue the theme of Silver Boom Town poetry, an epitaph in Boot Hill, Tombstone, Arizona

Here Lies
Lester Moore
Four Slugs
From a 44
No Les
No more

Perry Pattetic

Walt Trimmer • Jan 12, 2020 at 15:44

Excellent!

Perry Pattetic • Jan 12, 2020 at 12:18

Very good. Thanks. I appreciate the gems and nuggets that you unearth and pass along, Mark.
My fave poet is DJ Enright - I actually have a book of his poetry, which I am now tempted to open.
I expect you will be able to buy a two-room shack on the edge of the map with your earnings from your video poetry, and perhaps they will name the local dog-sled driving school after you!