Analysis of Mary Ellen



It's mighty quiet in the house
     Since Mary Ellen quit me cold;
I've swept the hearth and fed the mouse
     That's getting fat and overbold.
I've bought a pig's foot for the pot
     And soon I'll set the fire alight;
Then I may eat or I may not,
     Depends upon my appetite.

Since Mary Ellen left me lone
     I haven't earned a bloody bob.
I sit and sigh, and mope and moan,
     And bellyache I quit my job.
My money's mostly gone,--I think
     I ought to save it up for food . . .
But no, I'll blow it in for drink,
     Then do a bunk for good.

I watch my mouse his whiskers preen;
     He watches me with wicked glee.
Today--oh God! It's years sixteen
     Since Mary Ellen wed with me.
Oh how the dear girl hated vermin!
     She left rat poison on the shelf . . .
Friend Mouse, your doom I new determine
     Then--how about myself?


Scheme ABABCDCD EFEFGXGX HIHIXJXJ
Poetic Form
Metre 11010001 11010111 11010101 110101 11011101 011101001 11111111 0101110 11010111 11010101 11010101 0101111 11010111 11111111 11111011 110111 11111101 11011101 01111101 11010111 110111010 11110101 111111010 11011
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 832
Words 156
Sentences 17
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 8, 8, 8
Lines Amount 24
Letters per line (avg) 24
Words per line (avg) 7
Letters per stanza (avg) 196
Words per stanza (avg) 53
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 25, 2023

49 sec read
121

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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