The Contrast

Robert William Service 1874 – 1958



Fat lady, in your four-wheeled chair,
          Dolled up to beat the band,
At me you arrogantly stare
          With gold lorgnette in hand.
Oh how you differ from the dame
          So shabby, gaunt and grey,
With legs rheumatically lame,
          Who steers you on your way.

Nay, jewelled lady, look not back
          Lest you should be disturbed
To see the skinny hag in black
          Who boosts you up the curb.
Of course I know you get her cheap,
          Since she's a lady too,
And bite to eat and bed to sleep
          Maybe are all her due.

Alas for those who give us aid
          Yet need more help than we!
And though she thinks the wages paid
          Are almost charity,
I'd love to see that lady fat
          Lug round that hefty chair,
While with lorgnette and feathered hat
          Her handmaid lounges there.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

42 sec read
129

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABABCDCD EXEXFGFG HIHIJAJA
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 822
Words 141
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…

All Robert William Service poems | Robert William Service Books

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