Analysis of Marie Antoinette



They told to Marie Antoinette:
      "The beggers at your gate
Have eyes too sad for tears to wet,
      And for your pity wait."
But Marie only laughed and said:
      "My heart they will not ache:
If people starve for want of bread
                  Let them eat cake."

The Court re-echoed her bon mot;
      It rang around the land,
Till masses wakened from their woe
      With scyth and pick in hand.
It took a careless, callous phrase
      To rouse the folk forlorn:
A million roared the Marseillaise:
                  Freedom was born.

And so to Marie Antoinette
      Let's pay a tribute due;
Humanity owes her a debt,
      (Ironical, it's true).
She sparked world revolution red,
      And as with glee they bore
Upon a pike her lovely head
                  --Her curls dripped gore.


Scheme ABABCDCD AEXEFGFG AHAHCICI
Poetic Form
Metre 1110101 01111 11111111 011101 10110101 111111 11011111 1111 01110011 110101 1101111 110101 11010101 110101 010101 1011 0110101 110101 01001001 010011 1110101 011111 01010101 0111
Closest metre Iambic trimeter
Characters 799
Words 131
Sentences 7
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 8, 8, 8
Lines Amount 24
Letters per line (avg) 22
Words per line (avg) 5
Letters per stanza (avg) 177
Words per stanza (avg) 42
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on May 03, 2023

39 sec read
133

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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