Analysis of My Feud
Robert William Service 1874 – 1958
I hate my neighbour Widow Green;
I'd like to claw her face;
But if I did she'd make a scene
And run me round the place:
For widows are in way of spleen
A most pugnacious race.
And yet I must do something quick
To keep the hag in line,
Since her red rooster chose to pick
Five lettuce heads of mine:
And so I fed it arsenic
Which it did not decline.
It disappeared, but on my mat
Before a week had sped
I found Mi-mi, my tabby cat
And it was stoney dead;
I diagnosed with weeping that
On strychnine it had fed.
And so I bought a hamburg steak,
Primed it with powdered glass,
And left it for her dog to take
With gulping from the grass:
Since then, although I lie awake
I have not seen it pass.
Well, that's the scoring up to date:
And as I read a text
From Job to justify my hate
I wonder who'll be next?
Somehow I feel that one must die,
Ma Green or I.
Scheme | ABABAB CDCDCD EFEFEF GHGHGH IJIJKK |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Etheree (33%) Tetractys (20%) |
Metre | 1111101 111101 11111101 011101 11010111 010101 01111101 110101 10110111 110111 01111100 111101 1011111 010111 11111101 011101 1011101 11111 01110101 111101 01110111 110101 1111101 111111 11010111 011101 1111011 110111 1111111 1111 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 906 |
Words | 179 |
Sentences | 7 |
Stanzas | 5 |
Stanza Lengths | 6, 6, 6, 6, 6 |
Lines Amount | 30 |
Letters per line (avg) | 22 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 130 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 35 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 54 sec read
- 61 Views
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"My Feud" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/32280/my-feud>.
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