Analysis of Humility
Robert William Service 1874 – 1958
My virtues in Carara stone
Cut carefully you all my scan;
Beneath I lie, a fetid bone,
The marble worth more than the man.
If on my pure tomb they should grave
My vices,--how the folks would grin!
And say with sympathetic wave:
"Like us he was a man of sin."
And somehow he consoled thereby,
Knowing they may, though Hades bent,
When finally they come to die,
Enjoy a snow-white monument.
And maybe it is just as well
When we from life and lust are riven,
That though our souls should sink to hell
Our tombs point: Destination Heaven!
Scheme | ABAB CDCD EXEX FGFG |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain (75%) |
Metre | 110011 11001111 01110101 01011101 11111111 11010111 0110101 11110111 0110111 10111101 11001111 01011100 01011111 111101110 111011111 101101010 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 527 |
Words | 104 |
Sentences | 6 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 16 |
Letters per line (avg) | 26 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 104 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 25 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 30 sec read
- 80 Views
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"Humility" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 6 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/32174/humility>.
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