Analysis of Property
Robert William Service 1874 – 1958
The red-roofed house of dream design
Looks three ways on the sea;
For fifty years I've made it mine,
And held it part of me.
The pines I planted in my youth
Triumpantly are tall . . .
Yet now I know with sorry sooth
I have to leave it all.
Hard-hewn from out the living rock
And salty from the tide,
My house has braved the tempest shock
With hardihood and pride.
Each nook is memoried to me;
I've loved its every stone,
And cried to it exultantly:
"My own, my very own!"
Poor fool! To think that I possess.
I have but cannot hold;
And all that's mine is less and less
My own as I grow old.
My home shall ring with childish cheers
When I shall leave it lone;
My house will bide a hundred years
When I am in the bone.
Alas! No thing can be my own:
At most a life-long lease
Is all I hold, a little loan
From Time, that soon will cease.
For now by faint and failing breath
I feel that I must go . . .
Old House! You've never known a death,--
Well, now's your hour to know.
Scheme | ABABCDCD EFEFBGBG HIHIJGJG GKGKLMLM |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 01111101 111101 11011111 011111 01110011 111 11111101 111111 11110101 010101 11110101 1101 111111 1111001 01110100 111101 11111101 111101 01111101 111111 11111101 111111 11110101 111001 01111111 110111 11110101 111111 11110101 111111 11110101 1111011 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,066 |
Words | 198 |
Sentences | 19 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 8, 8, 8 |
Lines Amount | 32 |
Letters per line (avg) | 23 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 182 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 50 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on May 01, 2023
- 1:00 min read
- 116 Views
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"Property" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 13 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/32383/property>.
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