Analysis of My Centenarian
Robert William Service 1874 – 1958
A hundred years is a lot of living
I've often thought. and I'll know, maybe,
Some day if the gods are good in giving,
And grant me to turn the century.
Yet in all my eighty years of being
I've never known but one ancient man
Who actively feeling, hearing, seeing,
Survived t beyond the hundred span.
Thinking? No, I don't guess he pondered;
He had the brains of a tiny tot,
And in his mind he so often wandered,
I doubted him capable of thought.
He hadn't much to think of anyway,
There in the village of his birth,
Painfully poor in a pinching penny-way,
And grimed with the soiling of Mother Earth.
Then one day motoring past his cottage,
The hovel in which he had been born,
I saw him supping a mess of pottage,
on the sill door, so fail forlorn.
Thinks I: I'll give him a joy that's thrilling,
A spin in my open Cadillac;
And so I asked him, and he was willing,
And I installed him there in the back.
en I put the big bus through its paces,
A hundred miles an hour or more;
And he clutched at me with queer grimaces,
(He's never been in a car before.)
The motor roared and the road was level,
The old chap laughed like an impish boy,
And as I drove like the very devil,
Darn him! he peed his pants with joy.
And so I crowned his long existence
By showing him how our modern speed
Easily can annihilate distance,
And answer to all our modern need.
And I went on my way but little caring,
Until I heard to mild dismay,
His drive had thrilled him beyond all bearing . . .
The poor old devil! - He died next day.
Scheme | ABABACAC DXDXEFEF GHGHAIAI JKJKLMLM NONOAEAE |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Tetractys (20%) Etheree (20%) |
Metre | 0101101110 110101110 1110111010 011110100 1011101110 110111101 1100101010 011010101 101111110 110110101 0011111010 110110011 110111110 10010111 10010010101 011011101 1111001110 010011111 11110111 10111101 1111101110 01011010 0111101110 010111001 1110111110 010111011 0111111100 110100101 0101001110 011111101 0111101010 11111111 011111010 1101110101 100101010 0101110101 01111111010 01111101 1111101110 011101111 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,481 |
Words | 299 |
Sentences | 18 |
Stanzas | 5 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 8, 8, 8, 8 |
Lines Amount | 40 |
Letters per line (avg) | 29 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 231 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 60 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:32 min read
- 68 Views
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"My Centenarian" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 30 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/32268/my-centenarian>.
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