Tourists



In a strange town in a far land
          They met amid a throng;
They stared, they could not understand
          How life was sudden song.
As brown eyes looked in eyes of grey
          Just for a moment's space,
Twin spirits met with sweet dismay
                    In that strange place.

And then the mob that swept them near
          Reft them away again;
Two hearts in all the world most dear
          Knew puzzlement and pain.
They barely brushed in passing by,
          A wildered girl and boy,
Who should have clasped with laughing cry,
                    And wept for joy.

But no, the crowd cleft them apart,
          And she went East, he West;
But there was havoc in his heart
          And brooding in her breast.
In a far land, in a strange town
          Amid a mob they met;
They stared, they passed . . . But O deep down,
          Can they forget?

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

43 sec read
77

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABABCDCD EXEXFGFG HIHIJKJK
Closest metre Iambic trimeter
Characters 856
Words 144
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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