Analysis of Old Tom
Robert William Service 1874 – 1958
The harridan who holds the inn
At which I toss a pot,
Is old and uglier than sin,--
I'm glad she knows me not.
Indeed, for me it's hard to think,
Although my pow's like snow,
She was the lass so fresh and pink
I courted long ago.
I wronged her, yet it's sadly true
She wanted to be wronged:
They mostly do, although 'tis you,
The male bloke who is thonged.
Well, anyway I left her then
To sail across the sea,
And no doubt she had other men,
And soon lost sight of me.
So now she is a paunchy dame
And mistress of the inn,
With temper tart and tounge to blame,
Moustache and triple chin.
And though I have no proper home
Contentedly I purr,
And from my whiskers wipe the foam,
--Glad I did not wed her.
Yet it's so funny sitting here
To stare into her face;
And as I raise my mug of beer
I dream of our disgrace.
And so I come and come each day
To more and more enjoy
The joke--that fifty years away
I was her honey boy.
Scheme | ABABCDCD EXEBFGFG HAHAIJIJ XKXKLMLM |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 011101 111101 11010011 111111 01111111 11111 11011101 110101 11011101 110111 1101111 011111 1101101 110101 01111101 011111 11110101 010101 11010111 10101 01111101 010011 01110101 111110 11110101 110101 01111111 1111001 01110111 110101 01110101 110101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 999 |
Words | 192 |
Sentences | 9 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 8, 8, 8 |
Lines Amount | 32 |
Letters per line (avg) | 22 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 174 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 47 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 06, 2023
- 59 sec read
- 83 Views
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