Analysis of A Character



How often do I wish I were
What people call a character;
A ripe and cherubic old chappie
Who lives to make his fellows happy;
With in his eyes a merry twinkle,
And round his lips a laughing wrinkle;
Who radiating hope and cheer
Grows kindlier with every year.
For this ideal let me strive,
And keep the lad in me alive;
Nor argument nor anger know,
But my own way serenly go;
The woes of men to understand,
Yet walk with humour hand in hand;
To love each day and wonder why
Folks are not so jocund as I.

So be you simple, decent, kind,
With gentle heart and quiet mind;
And if to righteous anger stung,
Restrain your temper and your toungue.
Let thought for others be your guide,
And patience triumph over pride . . .
With charity for those who err,
Live life so folks may say you were--
God bless your heart!--A Character.


Scheme AABBCCDDEEFFGGHH IIJJKKXAA
Poetic Form Tetractys  (20%)
Metre 11011110 11010100 010010110 111111010 101101010 011101010 1100101 1111001 1101111 01010101 11001101 111111 0111101 1111101 11110101 1111111 11110101 11010101 01110101 01110011 11110111 01010101 11001111 11111110 11110100
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 807
Words 158
Sentences 9
Stanzas 2
Stanza Lengths 16, 9
Lines Amount 25
Letters per line (avg) 25
Words per line (avg) 6
Letters per stanza (avg) 319
Words per stanza (avg) 79
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

47 sec read
146

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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