Analysis of Child Lover



Drunk or sober Uncle Jim
      Played the boy;
Never glum or sour or grim,
      Oozin' joy.
Most folks thought he was no good,
      Blamin' him;
But where kiddies were, you could
      Bank on Jim.

Sure he allus hated work,
      Lovin' play.
"Jest a good fer nuthin' jerk,"
      Lots would say.
Yet how the children fell for him,
      Whooped with glee:
Guys so popular as Jim
      Seldom be.

How old songs, sweet as a bell,
      He would sing!
What grand stories he would tell,
      Gesturin'!
Elders reckoned him a sot,
      Sighin' sad;
But with tiny toddlers what
      Sport he had!

Might have had a brood, they said,
      Of his own;
Lost his wife in childbirth bed,
      Left him lone . . .
Well, now he is cold an' still,
      Here's to him:
Kids an' mothers always will
      Bless old Jim.


Scheme ABABCACA DEDEAFAF GXGHXIXI JHJHKAKA
Poetic Form
Metre 1110101 101 10111011 11 1111111 11 1110011 111 111101 101 101111 111 11010111 111 1110011 101 1111101 111 1110111 1 1010101 11 1110101 111 1110111 111 111011 111 1111111 111 111011 111
Closest metre Iambic trimeter
Characters 794
Words 139
Sentences 13
Stanzas 4
Stanza Lengths 8, 8, 8, 8
Lines Amount 32
Letters per line (avg) 17
Words per line (avg) 4
Letters per stanza (avg) 133
Words per stanza (avg) 35
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 14, 2023

41 sec read
47

Robert William Service

Robert William Service was a poet and writer sometimes referred to as the Bard of the Yukon He is best-known for his writings on the Canadian North including the poems The Shooting of Dan McGrew The Law of the Yukon and The Cremation of Sam McGee His writing was so expressive that his readers took him for a hard-bitten old Klondike prospector not the later-arriving bank clerk he actually was Robert William Service was born 16 January 1874 in Preston England but also lived in Scotland before emigrating to Canada in 1894 Service went to the Yukon Territory in 1904 as a bank clerk and became famous for his poems about this region which are mostly in his first two books of poetry He wrote quite a bit of prose as well and worked as a reporter for some time but those writings are not nearly as well known as his poems He travelled around the world quite a bit and narrowly escaped from France at the beginning of the Second World War during which time he lived in Hollywood California He died 11 September 1958 in France Incidentally he played himself in a movie called The Spoilers starring John Wayne and Marlene Dietrich more…

All Robert William Service poems | Robert William Service Books

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