The Sniper



Because back home in Tennessee
           I was a champeen shot,
They made a sniper outa me
           An' ninety krouts I got:
           I wish to Christ I'd not!
           
Athinkin' o' them blasted lives
           It's kindo' blue I be;
Them lads no doubt had kids an' wives
           An' happy home like me:
           Them stiffs I still can see.

Aye, ninety men or more my hand
           Has hustled down to hell;
They've loaded me with medals and
           They tell me I done well:
           A hero for a spell.

But Heaven help me to forget
           Them fellow men I've slain,
The bubbling flow of blood I've let . . .
           I'll never kill again:
           To swat flies gives me pain.

Just let me dream when we will see
           And end of soldierin';
When flags of famous victory
           Will be amoulderin':
An' lethal steel an' battle blast
           Be nightmares of the past.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

45 sec read
128

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABABB XAXAA XCXCC DEDXE AEAEFF
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 894
Words 146
Stanzas 5
Stanza Lengths 5, 5, 5, 5, 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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