The Bandit



Upon his way to rob a Bank
          He paused to watch a fire;
Though crowds were pressing rank on rank
          He pushed a passage nigher;
Then sudden heard, piercing and wild,
          The screaming of a child.

A Public Enemy was he,
          A hater of the law;
He looked around for bravery
          But only fear he saw;
Then to the craven crowds amaze
          He plunged into the blaze.

How anguished was the waiting spell
          Of horror and of pain!
Then--then from out that fiery hell
          He staggered forth again:
The babe was safe, in blankets wrapt,
          The man flame lapt.

His record was an evil one,
          Of violence and sin.
No good on earth he'd ever done,
          Yet--may he Heaven win!
A gangster he . . . Is it not odd?
          --With guts of God.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on May 02, 2023

40 sec read
280

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABABCC DEDEFF GXGXCC HIHIJJ
Closest metre Iambic trimeter
Characters 784
Words 133
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…

All Robert William Service poems | Robert William Service Books

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