Analysis of Rich Poor Man



We pitied him because
He lived alone;
His tiny cottage was
His only own.
His little garden had
A wall around;
Yet never was so glad
A bit of ground.

It seemed to fair rejoice
With flowers and fruit;
With blooms it found a voice
When ours was muts.
It smiled without a pause
In gracious glow:
I think it was because
He loved it so.

He had no news to read,
No rent to pay;
His vegetable need
He plucked each day.
His grateful garden gave
Him ample fare;
He lived without a crave,
Without a care.

His bread and milk and tea
Were all he bought;
To us he seemed to be
A sorry lot . . .
But when we're dead and gone,
With all our fuss,
I guess he'll carry on,
And laugh at us.


Scheme ABXBCDCD EXEAAFAF XGXGHIHI JKJKXLXL
Poetic Form
Metre 11101 1101 110101 1101 110101 0101 110111 0111 111101 11001 111101 11011 110101 0101 111101 1111 111111 1111 11001 1111 110101 1101 110101 0101 110101 0111 111111 0101 111101 11101 111101 0111
Closest metre Iambic trimeter
Characters 647
Words 138
Sentences 11
Stanzas 4
Stanza Lengths 8, 8, 8, 8
Lines Amount 32
Letters per line (avg) 16
Words per line (avg) 4
Letters per stanza (avg) 127
Words per stanza (avg) 35
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 12, 2023

42 sec read
168

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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