Analysis of The Lost Master
Robert William Service 1874 – 1958
"And when I come to die," he said,
"Ye shall not lay me out in state,
Nor leave your laurels at my head,
Nor cause your men of speech orate;
No monument your gift shall be,
No column in the Hall of Fame;
But just this line ye grave for me:
`He played the game.'"
So when his glorious task was done,
It was not of his fame we thought;
It was not of his battles won,
But of the pride with which he fought;
But of his zest, his ringing laugh,
His trenchant scorn of praise or blame:
And so we graved his epitaph,
"He played the game."
And so we, too, in humbler ways
Went forth to fight the fight anew,
And heeding neither blame nor praise,
We held the course he set us true.
And we, too, find the fighting sweet;
And we, too, fight for fighting's sake;
And though we go down in defeat,
And though our stormy hearts may break,
We will not do our Master shame:
We'll play the game, please God,
We'll play the game.
Scheme | axaabcbC dedefcfC ghghijijcxc |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 01111111 11111101 11110111 1111111 11001111 11000111 11111111 1101 111100111 11111111 11111101 11011111 11111101 11011111 0111110 1101 011101001 11110101 01010111 11011111 01110101 01111101 01111001 011010111 111110101 110111 1101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 907 |
Words | 187 |
Sentences | 5 |
Stanzas | 3 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 8, 11 |
Lines Amount | 27 |
Letters per line (avg) | 25 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 228 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 61 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on May 01, 2023
- 56 sec read
- 149 Views
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