Analysis of Externalism
Robert William Service 1874 – 1958
The Greatest Writer of to-day
(With Maupassant I almost set him)
Said to me in a weary way,
The last occasion that I met him:
"Old chap, this world is more and more
Becoming bourgeois, blasé, blousy:
Thank God I've lived so long before
It got so definitely lousy."
Said I: "Old chap, I don't agree.
Why should one so dispraise the present?
For gainful guys like you and me,
It still can be extremely pleasant.
Have we not Women, Wine and Song -
A gleeful trio to my thinking;
So blithely we can get along
With laughing, loving, eating, drinking."
Said he: "Dear Boy, it may be so,
But I'm fed up with war and worry;
I would escape this world of woe,
Of wrath and wrong, of hate and hurry.
I fain would gain the peace of mind
Of Lamas on Thibetan highlands,
Or maybe sanctuary find
With beach-combers on coral islands."
Said I: "Dear Boy, don't go so far:
Just live a life of simple being;
Forgetting all the ills that are,
Be satisfied with hearing, seeing.
The sense of smell and taste and touch
Can bring you bliss in ample measure:
If only you don't think too much,
Your programme can be packed with pleasure.
"But do not try to probe below
This fairy film of Nature's screening;
Look on it as a surface show,
Without a purpose of a meaning.
Take no account of social strife,
And dread no coming cataclysm:
Let your philosophy of life
Be what I call: EXTERNALISM.
The moon shines down with borrowed light,
So savants say - I do not doubt it.
Suffice its silver trance my sight,
That's all I want to know about it.
A fig for science - 'how' and 'why'
Distract me in my happy dreaming:
Through line and form and colour I
Am all content with outward seeming. . . ."
The Greatest Writer of to-day
(I would have loved to call him Willie),
looked wry at me and went his way -
I think he thought me rather silly.
Maybe I am, but I insist
My point of view will take some beating:
Don't mock this old Externalist -
The pudding's proof is in the eating.
Scheme | Ababcdcd efefghgh deiejdjd khkhlmlm ihihnxnb opopqhqh Aeaexhah |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 01010111 111111 11100101 010101111 11111101 0100111 11111101 111100010 11111101 11111010 11011101 111101010 11110101 01011110 11011101 110101010 11111111 111111010 11011111 110111010 11110111 1101110 1101001 11111010 11111111 110111010 01010111 11011010 01110101 111101010 11011111 11111110 11111101 110111010 11110101 010101010 11011101 01110100 11010011 11111 0111111 110111111 01110111 111111011 01110101 011011010 1101011 111011010 01010111 111111110 11110111 111111010 10111101 111111110 11111 01110010 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,900 |
Words | 375 |
Sentences | 20 |
Stanzas | 7 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8 |
Lines Amount | 56 |
Letters per line (avg) | 26 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 212 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 53 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 29, 2023
- 1:54 min read
- 48 Views
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"Externalism" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 27 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/32106/externalism>.
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