Analysis of Retired Shopman
Robert William Service 1874 – 1958
He had the grocer's counter-stoop,
That little man so grey and neat;
His moustache had a doleful droop,
He hailed me in the slushy street.
"I've sold my shop," he said to me,
Cupping his hand behind his ear.
"My deafness got so bad, you see,
Folks had to shout to make me hear."
He sighed and sadly shook his head;
The hand he gave was chill as ice.
"I sold out far too soon," he said;
"To-day I'd get ten times the price.
But then how was a man to know,
(The War, the rising cost of life.)
We have to pinch to make things go:
It's tough - I'm sorry for the wife.
"She looks sometimes at me with tears.
'You worked so hard,' I hear her say.
'You had your shop for forty years,
And you were honest as the day.'
Ah yes, I loved my shop, it's true;
My customers I tried to please;
But when one's deaf and sixty-two
What can one do in times like these?
"My savings, that I fondly thought
Would keep me snug when we were old,
Are melting fast - what once I bought
For silver, now is sought with gold.
The cost of life goes up each day;
I wonder what will be the end?"
He sighed, I saw him drift away
And thought: Alas for you, my friend!
and every day I see him stop
And look and look with wistful eye
At what was once his little shop,
Whose goods he can no longer buy.
Then homeward wearily he goes
To where his wife bed-ridden lies,
A driblet dangling from his nose. . . .
But Oh the panic in his eyes!
Scheme | ABABCDCD EFEFGHGH XIXIJKJK XLXLIMIM NONOPQPQ |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Etheree (30%) Tetractys (20%) |
Metre | 11010101 11011101 1110101 1110011 11111111 1110111 11011111 11111111 11010111 01111111 11111111 11111101 11110111 01010111 11111111 11110101 11011111 11111101 11111101 01010101 11111111 11001111 11110101 11110111 11011101 11111101 11011111 11011111 01111111 11011101 11111101 01011111 010011111 01011101 11111101 11111101 11010011 11111101 01100111 11010011 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,368 |
Words | 291 |
Sentences | 21 |
Stanzas | 5 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 8, 8, 8, 8 |
Lines Amount | 40 |
Letters per line (avg) | 26 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 208 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 57 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:27 min read
- 125 Views
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"Retired Shopman" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 6 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/32398/retired-shopman>.
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