Analysis of Successful Failure

Robert William Service 1874 – 1958



I wonder if successful men
          Are always happy?
And do they sing with gusto when
          Springtime is sappy?
Although I am of snow-white hair
          And nighly mortal,
Each time I sniff the April air
                    I chortle.

I wonder if a millionaire
          Jigs with enjoyment,
Having such heaps of time to spare
          For daft employment.
For as I dance the Highland Fling
          My glee is muckle,
And doping out new songs to sing
                    I chuckle.

I wonder why so soon forgot
          Are fame and riches;
Let cottage comfort be my lot
          With well-worn britches.
As in a pub a poor unknown,
          Brown ale quaffing,
To think of all I'll never own,--
                    I'm laughing.


Scheme ABABCDCD CECEFDFD GHGHIFIF
Poetic Form
Metre 11010101 1110 0111111 111 1111111 0110 11110101 110 1101001 11010 10111111 11010 11110101 11110 0111111 110 11011101 11010 11010111 11110 10010101 111 11111101 110
Closest metre Iambic trimeter
Characters 728
Words 115
Sentences 8
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 8, 8, 8
Lines Amount 24
Letters per line (avg) 19
Words per line (avg) 5
Letters per stanza (avg) 154
Words per stanza (avg) 37
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 25, 2023

35 sec read
92

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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