Analysis of Hate
Robert William Service 1874 – 1958
I had a bitter enemy,
His heart to hate he gave,
And when I died he swore that he
Would dance upon my grave;
That he would leap and laugh because
A livid corpse was I,
And that's the reason why I was
In no great haste to die.
And then - such is the quirk of fate,
One day with joy I read,
Despite his vitalizing hate
My enemy was dead.
Maybe the poison in his heart
Had helped to haste his doom:
He was not spared till I depart
To spit upon my tomb.
The other day I chanced to go
To where he lies alone.
'Tis easy to forgive a foe
When he is dead and gone. . . .
Poor devil! Now his day is done,
(Though bright it was and brave,)
Yet I am happy there is none
To dance upon my grave.
Scheme | ABABXCXC DEDEFGFG HXHXIBIB |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11010100 111111 01111111 110111 11110101 010111 01010111 011111 01110111 111111 01111 110011 10010011 111111 11111101 110111 01011111 111101 11010101 111101 11011111 111101 11110111 110111 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 669 |
Words | 148 |
Sentences | 11 |
Stanzas | 3 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 8, 8 |
Lines Amount | 24 |
Letters per line (avg) | 21 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 170 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 49 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 24, 2023
- 44 sec read
- 276 Views
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"Hate" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/32162/hate>.
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