Analysis of Dyspeptic Clerk
Robert William Service 1874 – 1958
I think I'll buy a little field,
Though scant am I of pelf,
And hold the hope that it may yield
A living for myself;
For I have toiled ten thousand days
With ledger and with pen,
And I am sick of city ways
And soured with city men.
So I will plant my little plot
With lettuce, beans and peas;
Potatoes too - oh quite a lot,
An pear and apple trees.
My carrots will be coral pink,
My turnips ivory;
And I'll forget my pen and ink,
And office slavery.
My hut shall have a single room
Monastically bare;
A faggot fire for the winter gloom,
A table and a chair.
A Frugalist I call myself,
My needs are oh so small;
My luxury a classic shelf
Of poets on the wall.
Here as I dream, how grey and cold
The City seems to me;
Another world of green and gold
Incessantly I see.
So I will fling my pen away,
And learn a how to wield;
A cashbook and a stool today . . .
Soon, soon a Little Field.
Scheme | ABABCDCD EFEFGHGH IJIJBKBK LHLHMAMA |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11110101 111111 01011111 01011 11111101 110011 01111101 0101101 11111101 110101 01011101 110101 11011101 110100 01011101 010100 11110101 11 0101010101 010001 01111 111111 11000101 110101 11111101 010111 01011101 010011 11111101 010111 0100101 110101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 860 |
Words | 182 |
Sentences | 11 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 8, 8, 8 |
Lines Amount | 32 |
Letters per line (avg) | 21 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 167 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 46 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 03, 2023
- 55 sec read
- 64 Views
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