Analysis of Fear



I know how father's strap would feel,
If ever I were caught,
So mother's jam I did not steal,
Though theft was in my thought.
Then turned fourteen and full of pitch,
Of love I was afraid,
And did not dare to dally with
Our pretty parlour maid.

And so it is and always was,
The path of rectitude
I've followed all my life because
The Parson said I should.
The dread of hell-fire held me straight
When I was wont to stray,
And though my guts I often hate,
I walk the narrow way.

I might have been a bandit or
A Casanovish blade,
But always I have prospered for
I've always been afraid;
Ay, fear's behind the best of us
And schools us for success,
And that is why I'm virtuous,
And happy - more or less.

So let me hail that mighty power
That goads me to be good,
And makes me cannily to cower
Amid foolhardihood;
Though I be criminal in gain,
My virtue a veneer,
I thank the God who keeps me sane,
And shields me from distress and pain,
And thrifts me on to golden gain,
                            Almighty Fear.


Scheme ABAXXCXC XXXDEFEF GCGCHIHI JDJBKLKKKL
Poetic Form
Metre 11110111 110101 11011111 111011 11110111 111101 01111101 1010101 0111011 01110 11011101 010111 011110111 111111 01111101 110101 11110101 011 1111101 11101 11010111 011101 01111100 010111 111111010 111111 0111110 011 11110001 110001 11011111 01110101 01111101 0101
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 985
Words 196
Sentences 7
Stanzas 4
Stanza Lengths 8, 8, 8, 10
Lines Amount 34
Letters per line (avg) 22
Words per line (avg) 6
Letters per stanza (avg) 189
Words per stanza (avg) 49
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

1:00 min read
96

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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