Old Sweethearts



Oh Maggie, do you mind the day
        We went to school together,
And as we stoppit by the way
        I rolled you in the heather?
My! but you were the bonny lass
        And we were awfu' late for class.

Your locks are now as white as snow,
        And you are ripe and wrinkled,
A grandmother ten times or so,
        Yet how your blue eyes twinkled
At me above your spectacles,
        Recalling naughty neck-tickles!

It must be fifty years today
        I left you for the Yukon;
You haven't changed - your just as gay
        And just as sweet to look on.
But can you see in this old fool
        The lad who made you late for school?

Oh Maggie, ask me in to tea
        And we can talk things over,
And contemplate the nuptial state,
    For I am still your lover:
And though the bell be slow to chime
    We'll no be grudgin' o' the time

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

47 sec read
83

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABABCC DEDEFF AGAGHH XBXBII
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 831
Words 157
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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