Analysis of Erico



Oh darling Eric, why did you
For my fond affection sue,
And then with surgeons artful aid
Transform yourself into a maid?
So now in petticoats you go
And people call you Erico.

Sometimes I wonder if they can
Change me in turn into a man;
Then after all we might get wed
And frolic on a feather bed:
Although I do not see how we
Could ever have a family.

Oh dear! Oh dear! It's so complex.
Why must they meddle with our sex.
My Eric was a handsome 'he,'
But now he--oh excuse me--she
Informs me that I must forget
I was his blond Elizabet.

Alas! These scientists of Sweden
I curse, who've robbed me of my Eden;
Who with their weird hormones inhuman
Can make a man into a woman.
Alas, poor Eric! . . . Erico
I wish you were in Jerico.


Scheme AABBCC DDEEFF GGFFXB HHHHCC
Poetic Form
Metre 11010111 1110101 01110101 01010101 1101011 010111 01110111 11010101 11011111 01010101 1111111 11010100 11111110 111101101 11010101 11110111 01111101 11111 011100110 110111110 11111010 110101010 011101 111001
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 717
Words 146
Sentences 16
Stanzas 4
Stanza Lengths 6, 6, 6, 6
Lines Amount 24
Letters per line (avg) 23
Words per line (avg) 6
Letters per stanza (avg) 139
Words per stanza (avg) 37
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 06, 2023

44 sec read
50

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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