Analysis of The Score



Because I've come to eighty odd,
I must prepare to meet you, God.
What should I do? I cannot pray,
I have no pious words to say;
And though the Bible I might read,
              Scriptures don't meet my need.

Please tell me God what can I do
To be acceptable to you?
I've put in order my affairs,
And left their portion to my heirs;
And what remains I've willed to be
              A gift to Charity.

What must I do? I cannot kneel,
Although a sense of you I feel,
I will not show a coward's fear,
Waiting until the end be near
To pester you with mercy plea,
              --You'd be despising me.

I hope I have been kind and true;
I've helped to happiness a few.
I've made a mother's eye to smile,
I've played with little ones a while.
I do not know what is the score;
Of good I might have done much more:
But now I guess my exit's due;--
              Dear God, it's up to You!


Scheme AABBXX CCDDEE FFGGEE CCHHIICC
Poetic Form
Metre 01111101 11011111 11111101 11110111 01010111 101111 11111111 11010011 11010101 01110111 01011111 011100 11111101 1011111 11110101 10010111 11011101 110101 11111101 11110001 11010111 11110101 11111101 11111111 1111111 111111
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 876
Words 173
Sentences 11
Stanzas 4
Stanza Lengths 6, 6, 6, 8
Lines Amount 26
Letters per line (avg) 24
Words per line (avg) 7
Letters per stanza (avg) 153
Words per stanza (avg) 43
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

55 sec read
90

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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