Analysis of Poor Cock Robin



My garden robin in the Spring
Was rapturous with glee,
And followed me with wistful wing
From pear to apple tree;
His melodies the summer long
He carolled with delight,
As if he could with jewelled song
Find favour in my sight.

And now that Autumn's in the air
He's singing singing still,
And yet somehow I cannot bear
The frenzy of his bill;
The keen wind ruffs his ruddy breast
As to bare boughs he clings;
The sun is sullen in the West
Yet still he sings and sings.

Soon, soon the legions of the snow
Will pitch their tents again,
And round my window-sill I know
He'll call for crumbs in vein;
The pulsing passion of his throat
Has hint of Winter woe;
The piercing sweetness of his note
entreats me not to go.

In vein, in vain, Oh valiant one,
You sing to bid me stay!
For all my life is in the sun
And I must fly away.
yet by no gold or orange glow
Will I be comforted,
Seeing blood-bright in bitter snow -
                            A robin dead.


Scheme ABABCDCD EFEFGHGH IXIXJIJI KLKLIXIX
Poetic Form
Metre 11010001 110011 01011101 111101 11000101 11101 1111111 11011 01110001 110101 0111101 010111 01111101 111111 01110001 111101 11010101 111101 01110111 111101 01010111 111101 01010111 11111 01011101 111111 11111001 011101 11111101 111100 10110101 0101
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 929
Words 184
Sentences 7
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) 179
Words per stanza (avg) 46
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 09, 2023

56 sec read
97

Robert William Service

Robert William Service was a poet and writer sometimes referred to as the Bard of the Yukon He is best-known for his writings on the Canadian North including the poems The Shooting of Dan McGrew The Law of the Yukon and The Cremation of Sam McGee His writing was so expressive that his readers took him for a hard-bitten old Klondike prospector not the later-arriving bank clerk he actually was Robert William Service was born 16 January 1874 in Preston England but also lived in Scotland before emigrating to Canada in 1894 Service went to the Yukon Territory in 1904 as a bank clerk and became famous for his poems about this region which are mostly in his first two books of poetry He wrote quite a bit of prose as well and worked as a reporter for some time but those writings are not nearly as well known as his poems He travelled around the world quite a bit and narrowly escaped from France at the beginning of the Second World War during which time he lived in Hollywood California He died 11 September 1958 in France Incidentally he played himself in a movie called The Spoilers starring John Wayne and Marlene Dietrich more…

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