Analysis of Segregation
Robert William Service 1874 – 1958
I stood beside the silken rope,
Five dollars in my hand,
And waited in my patient hope
To sit anear the Band,
And hear the famous Louie play
The best hot trumpet of today.
And then a waiter loafing near
Says in a nasty tone:
"Old coon, we don't want darkies here,
Beat it before you're thrown."
So knowin' nothin' I could do
I turned to go and--there was Lou.
I think he slapped that Dago's face;
His voice was big an' loud;
An' then he leads me from my place
Through all that tony crowd.
World-famous Louie by the hand
Took me to meet his famous Band.
"Listen, you folks," I heard him say.
"Here's Grand-papa what's come.
Savin' he teached me how to play,
I mighta been a bum.
Come on, Grand-pop, git up an' show
How you kin trumpet Ol' Black Joe."
Tremblin' I played before his Band:
You should have heard the cheers.
Them swell folks gave me such a hand
My cheeks was wet wi' tears . . .
An' now I'm off to tell the wife
The proudest night o' all ma life.
Scheme | ABABCC XDXDEE FGFGBB CHCHII BXBXJJ |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Etheree (33%) |
Metre | 11010101 110011 01001101 11101 01010011 01110101 0101011 100101 1111111 110111 1110111 11110111 1111111 111111 11111111 111101 11001101 11111101 10111111 111011 10111111 11101 11111111 11110111 1110111 111101 11111101 111111 11111101 01011111 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,033 |
Words | 191 |
Sentences | 15 |
Stanzas | 5 |
Stanza Lengths | 6, 6, 6, 6, 6 |
Lines Amount | 30 |
Letters per line (avg) | 24 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 143 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 38 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 14, 2023
- 58 sec read
- 78 Views
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"Segregation" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 1 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/32427/segregation>.
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