Birds Of A Feather

Robert William Service 1874 – 1958



Of bosom friends I've had but seven,
           Despite my years are ripe;
I hope they're now enjoying Heaven,
           Although they're not the type;
Nor, candidly, no more am I,
           Though overdue to die.
           
For looking back I see that they
           Were weak and wasteful men;
They loved a sultry jest alway,
           And women now and then.
They smoked and gambled, soused and swore,
           --Yet no one was a bore.

'Tis strange I took to lads like these,
           On whom the good should frown;
Yet all with poetry would please
           To wash his wassail down;
Their temples touched the starry way,
           But O what feet of clay!

Well, all are dust, of fame bereft;
           They bore a cruel cross,
And I, the canny one, am left,--
           Yet as I grieve their loss,
I deem, because they loved me well,
           They'll welcome me in Hell.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

45 sec read
163

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABABCC DEXEFF GHGHDD IJIJKK
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 874
Words 146
Stanzas 4
Stanza Lengths 6, 6, 6, 6

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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