Analysis of The Battle Of The Bulge



This year an ocean trip I took, and as I am a Scot
And like to get my money's worth I never missed a meal.
In spite of Neptune's nastiness I ate an awful lot,
Yet felt as fit as if we sailed upon an even keel.
But now that I am home again I'm stricken with disgust;
How many pounds of fat I've gained I'd rather not divulge:
Well, anyway I mean to take this tummy down or bust,
So here I'm suet-strafing in the
                    Battle of the Bulge.
No more will sausage, bacon, eggs provide my breakfast fare;
On lobster I will never lunch, with mounds of mayonnaise.
At tea I'll Spartanly eschew the chocolate éclair;
Roast duckling and péche melba shall not consummate my days.
No more nocturnal ice-box raids, midnight spaghetti feeds;
On slabs of pâté de foie gras I vow I won't indulge:
Let bran and cottage cheese suffice my gastronomic needs,
And lettuce be my ally in the
                    Battle of the Bulge.

To hell with you, ignoble paunch, abhorrent in my sight!
I gaze at your rotundity, and savage is my frown.
I'll rub you and I'll scrub you and I'll drub you day and night,
But by the gods of symmetry I swear I'll get you down.
Your smooth and smug convexity, by heck! I will subdue,
And when you tucker in again with joy will I refulge;
No longer of my toes will you obstruct my downward view . . .
With might and main I'll fight to gain the
                    Battle of the Bulge.


Scheme ababcdceDfgfghdheD ijijkdkeD
Poetic Form
Metre 11110111011101 01111101110101 0111100111101 11111111011101 11111101110101 11011111110101 1101111110111 11111000 10101 11110101011101 1101110111110 1111010101 110011101110011 1101011110101 11111111111101 1101010110101 010111000 10101 11110101010011 11111010111 11101110111101 11011100111111 11011111101 0111000111111 11011111011101 110111110 10101
Closest metre Iambic hexameter
Characters 1,397
Words 262
Sentences 15
Stanzas 2
Stanza Lengths 18, 9
Lines Amount 27
Letters per line (avg) 38
Words per line (avg) 10
Letters per stanza (avg) 518
Words per stanza (avg) 131
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 14, 2023

1:22 min read
167

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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