Analysis of Class-Mates



Bob Briggs went in for Government,
      And helps to run the State;
Some day they say he'll represent
      His party in debate:
But with punk politics his job,
      I do not envy Bob.

Jim Jones went in for writing books,
      Best sellers were his aim;
He's ten years younger than he looks,
      And licks the heels of Fame:
Though shop-girls make a fuss of him
      I do not envy Jim.

Joe Giles went in for grabbing gold,
      And grovelled in the dirt;
He, too, looks prematurely old,
      His gastric ulcers hurt:
Although he has a heap of dough.
      I do not envy Joe.

I've neither fame nor power nor wealth,
      I fish and hunt for food;
But I have heaps of rugged health,
      And life seems mighty good.
So when my class-mates come to spend
      A week-end in my shack,
With lake and wood at journey's end
      --They envy Jack.


Scheme XAXABB CDCDEE FGFGHH IXIXJKJK
Poetic Form
Metre 11101100 011101 1111101 110001 1111011 111101 11101101 110011 11110111 010111 11110111 111101 11101101 01001 1110101 110101 1110111 111101 110111011 110111 11111101 011101 11111111 011011 1101111 1101
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 839
Words 152
Sentences 7
Stanzas 4
Stanza Lengths 6, 6, 6, 8
Lines Amount 26
Letters per line (avg) 23
Words per line (avg) 6
Letters per stanza (avg) 148
Words per stanza (avg) 38
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

46 sec read
80

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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