Analysis of The Undying



She was so wonderful I wondered
If wedding me she had not blundered;
She was so pure, so high above me,
I marvelled how she came to love me:
Or did she? Well, in her own fashion -
Affection, pity, never passion.

I knew I was not worth her love;
Yet oh, how wistfully I strove
To be her equal in some way;
She knew I tried, and I would pray
Some day she'd hold her head in pride,
And stand with praising by my side.

A Weakling, I - she made me strong;
My finest thoughts to her belong;
Through twenty years she mothered me,
And then one day she smothered me
With kisses, saying wild with joy:
"Soon we'll be three - let's hope, a boy."

"Too old to bear a child," they said;
Well, they were right, for both are dead. . . .
Ah no, not dead - she is with me,
And by my side she'll ever be;
Her spirit lingers, half divine:
All good I do is hers, not mine.

God, by my works O let me strive
To keep her gentleness alive!
Let in my heart her spirit glow,
And by my thoughts for others show
She is not dead: she'll never die
While love for humankind have I.


Scheme AABBCC XXDDEE FFBBGG HHBBII JJKKLL
Poetic Form Etheree  (30%)
Tetractys  (20%)
Metre 111100110 110111110 111111011 11111111 111100110 010101010 11111101 11110011 11010011 11110111 11110101 01110111 01011111 11011001 1101111 01111101 11010111 11111101 11110111 11011111 11111111 01111101 01010101 11111011 11111111 11010001 10110101 01111101 11111101 1111011
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 1,028
Words 217
Sentences 12
Stanzas 5
Stanza Lengths 6, 6, 6, 6, 6
Lines Amount 30
Letters per line (avg) 26
Words per line (avg) 7
Letters per stanza (avg) 156
Words per stanza (avg) 43
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

1:06 min read
101

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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