Book Ends/Poetry

Note that some Book Ends can be spoilers, so beware.

Examples of Book Ends in Poetry include:

• "The Cremation of Sam McGee" by Robert Service both begins and ends with the same stanza, referring to the queerest sight ever seen by the Northern Lights (namely the eponymous cremation). The poem in between these stanza's describes the events of Sam's death, his subsequent cremation, and what the narrator saw when he looked into Sam's funeral pyre. He saw Sam sitting up "looking cool, and calm", happy to be warm for the first time since leaving his home in Tennessee.

There are strange things done in the midnight sun by the men that toil 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 Labarge that I cremated Sam McGee

• Jabberwocky (largely nonsense):

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe, All mimsy were the borogroves, And the mome raths outgrabe.

---

Back to Book Ends