Analysis of The Silent Ones



I'm just an ordinary chap
      Who comes home to his tea,
And mostly I don't care a rap
      What people think of me;
I do my job and take my pay,
      And love of peace expound;
But as I go my patient way,
      --Don't push me round.

Though I respect authority
      And order never flout,
When Law and Justice disagree
      You can include me out.
The Welfare State I tolerate
      If it is kept in bound,
But if you wish to rouse my hate
      --Just push me round.

And that's the way with lots of us:
      We want to feel we're free;
So labour governments we cuss
      And mock at monarchy.
Yea, we are men of secret mirth,
      And fury seldom sound;
But if you value peace on earth
      --Don't push us round.


Scheme ABABCDCD BEBEFDFD GBGBHDHD
Poetic Form
Metre 1111001 111111 01011101 110111 11110111 011101 11111101 1111 11010100 010101 11010001 110111 011110 111101 11111111 1111 01011111 111111 1110011 011100 11111101 010101 11110111 1111
Closest metre Iambic trimeter
Characters 716
Words 135
Sentences 6
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 8, 8, 8
Lines Amount 24
Letters per line (avg) 21
Words per line (avg) 6
Letters per stanza (avg) 164
Words per stanza (avg) 44
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 19, 2023

42 sec read
118

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…

All Robert William Service poems | Robert William Service Books

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