Analysis of I'm Scared Of It All
Robert William Service 1874 – 1958
I'm scared of it all, God's truth! so I am;
It's too big and brutal for me.
My nerve's on the raw and I don't give a damn
For all the "hoorah" that I see.
I'm pinned between subway and overhead train,
Where automobillies swoop down:
Oh, I want to go back to the timber again --
I'm scared of the terrible town.
I want to go back to my lean, ashen plains;
My rivers that flash into foam;
My ultimate valleys where solitude reigns;
My trail from Fort Churchill to Nome.
My forests packed full of mysterious gloom,
My ice-fields agrind and aglare:
The city is deadfalled with danger and doom --
I know that I'm safer up there.
I watch the wan faces that flash in the street;
All kinds and all classes I see.
Yet never a one in the million I meet,
Has the smile of a comrade for me.
Just jaded and panting like dogs in a pack;
Just tensed and intent on the goal:
O God! but I'm lonesome -- I wish I was back,
Up there in the land of the Pole.
I wish I was back on the Hunger Plateaus,
And seeking the lost caribou;
I wish I was up where the Coppermine flows
To the kick of my little canoe.
I'd like to be far on some weariful shore,
In the Land of the Blizzard and Bear;
Oh, I wish I was snug in the Arctic once more,
For I know I am safer up there!
I prowl in the canyons of dismal unrest;
I cringe -- I'm so weak and so small.
I can't get my bearings, I'm crushed and oppressed
With the haste and the waste of it all.
The slaves and the madman, the lust and the sweat,
The fear in the faces I see;
The getting, the spending, the fever, the fret --
It's too bleeding cruel for me.
I feel it's all wrong, but I can't tell you why --
The palace, the hovel next door;
The insolent towers that sprawl to the sky,
The crush and the rush and the roar.
I'm trapped like a fox and I fear for my pelt;
I cower in the crash and the glare;
Oh, I want to be back in the avalanche belt,
For I know that it's safer up there!
I'm scared of it all: Oh, afar I can hear
The voice of my solitudes call!
We're nothing but brute with a little veneer,
And nature is best after all.
There's tumult and terror abroad in the street;
There's menace and doom in the air;
I've got to get back to my thousand-mile beat;
The trail where the cougar and silver-tip meet;
The snows and the camp-fire, with wolves at my feet;
Good-bye, for it's safer up there.
To be forming good habits up there;
To be starving on rabbits up there;
In your hunger and woe,
Though it's sixty below,
Oh, I know that it's safer up there!
Scheme | ABABXCXC DEDEFGFG HBHBIJIJ DKXKGGGG LMLMNBNB OGOGPGPG GMGMHGHHHG GGQQG |
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Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1111111111 11101011 11101011101 1101111 1101101011 1111 111111101001 11101001 11111111101 11011011 1100101101 11111011 11011101001 111101 0101111001 11111011 11011011001 11011011 11001001011 10110111 11001011001 11001101 11111011111 11001101 1111110101 0100110 111111011 101111001 111111111 001101001 111111001011 111111011 11001011001 11111011 11111011001 101001111 0100101001 01001011 01001001001 11101011 11111111111 01001011 01001011101 01001001 11101011111 110001001 11111100101 111111011 11111101111 011111 11011101001 01011101 11001001001 11001001 11111111011 01101001011 010011011111 11111011 111011011 111011011 011001 111001 111111011 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 2,428 |
Words | 504 |
Sentences | 22 |
Stanzas | 8 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 10, 5 |
Lines Amount | 63 |
Letters per line (avg) | 30 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 233 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 63 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 17, 2023
- 2:39 min read
- 182 Views
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"I'm Scared Of It All" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 21 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/32180/i%27m-scared-of-it-all>.
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