Analysis of Death Of A Cockroach



I opened wide the bath-room door,
And all at once switched on the light,
When moving swift across the floor
I saw a streak of ebon bright:
Then quick, with slipper in my hand,
Before it could escape,--I slammed.
I missed it once, I missed it twice,
But got it ere it gained its lair.
I fear my words were far from nice,
Though d----s with me are rather rare:
Then lo! I thought that dying roach
Regarded me with some reproach.

Said I: "Don't think I grudge you breath;
I hate to spill your greenish gore,
But why did you invite your death
By straying on my bath-room floor?"
"It is because," said he (or she),
"Adventure is my destiny.

"By evolution I was planned,
And marvellously made as you;
And I am led to understand
The selfsame God conceived us two:
Sire, though the coup de grâce you give,
Even a roach has right to live."

Said I: "Of course you have a right,--
But not to blot my bath-room floor.
Yet though with slipper I may smite,
Your doom I morally deplore . . .
From cellar gloom to stellar space
Let bards and beetles have their place.


Scheme ABABCXDEDEFF GAGAHH CICIXX BABAJJ
Poetic Form Etheree  (30%)
Tetractys  (20%)
Metre 11010111 01111101 11010101 1101111 11110011 01110111 11111111 11111111 11110111 111111101 11111101 01011101 11111111 11111101 11110111 11011111 11011111 01011100 1010111 01111 0111101 0110111 1010111111 10011111 11111101 11111111 11110111 11110001 11011101 11010111
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 1,036
Words 206
Sentences 13
Stanzas 4
Stanza Lengths 12, 6, 6, 6
Lines Amount 30
Letters per line (avg) 27
Words per line (avg) 7
Letters per stanza (avg) 200
Words per stanza (avg) 50
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 27, 2023

1:01 min read
214

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…

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