Analysis of Dark Truth



Birds have no consciousness of doom:
Yon thrush that serenades me daily
From scented snow of hawthorn bloom
Would not trill out his glee so gaily,
Could he foretell his songful breath
Would sadly soon be stilled in death.

Yon lambs that frolic on the lea
And incarnate the joy of life,
Would scarce disport them could they see
The shadow of the butcher's knife:
Oh Nature, with your loving ruth,
You spare them knowledge of Dark Truth.

To sad humanity alone,
(Creation's triumph ultimate)
The grimness of the grave is known,
The dusty destiny await . . . .
Oh bird and beast, with joy, elance
Effulgently your ingorance!
Oh man, previsioning the hearse,
With fortitude accept your curse!


Scheme ABABCC BDBDEE FXFXGGGG
Poetic Form Tetractys  (20%)
Etheree  (20%)
Metre 11110011 1111110 1101111 111111110 1101111 11011101 11110101 00100111 1111111 0110101 11011101 11110111 11010001 110100 01010111 01010001 1101111 111 11101 1100111
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 676
Words 118
Sentences 9
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 6, 6, 8
Lines Amount 20
Letters per line (avg) 27
Words per line (avg) 6
Letters per stanza (avg) 181
Words per stanza (avg) 40
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

36 sec read
75

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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