Immortality



Full well I trow that when I die
         Down drops the curtain;
Another show is all my eye
         And Betty Martin.
I know the score, and with a smile
         Of rueful rating,
I reckon I am not worth while
         Perpetuating.
         
I hope that God,--if God there be
         Of love and glory,
Will let me off Eternity,
         And end my story.
Will count me just a worn-out bit
         Of human matter,
Who's done his job or bungled it,
         --More like the latter.

I did not beg for mortal breath,
         Plus hell or Heaven;
So let the last pay-off be death,
         And call it even.
To Nature I will pay my debt
         With stoic laughter:
But spare me, God, your awful threat
         Of Life Here-after!

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

38 sec read
96

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABABCDCD EEEEFGFG HBHXIGIG
Closest metre Iambic trimeter
Characters 719
Words 126
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 8, 8, 8

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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