Analysis of Tick-Tock

Robert William Service 1874 – 1958



Tick-tocking in my ear
My dollar clock I hear.
'Arise,' it seems to say:
'Behold another day
To grasp the golden key
Of Opportunity;
To turn the magic lock--
               Tick-tock!

'Another day to gain
Some goal you sought in vain;
to sing a sweeter song,
Perchance to right a wrong;
To win a height unscaled
Where yesterday you failed;
To brave a battle shock--
               Tick-tock!'

You measure out my breath,
Each beat one nearer death . . .
O God, grant unto me
A few more years to be,
That somehow I may prove
My loyalty and love:
Wind up this worn-out clock,
               Tick-tock,
               Tick-tock!


Scheme aabbccdD eeffggdD hhccxxdDD
Poetic Form Tetractys  (24%)
Metre 11011 110111 011111 010101 110101 10100 110101 11 010111 111101 110101 011101 11011 11011 110101 11 110111 111101 111101 011111 11111 110001 111111 11 11
Closest metre Iambic trimeter
Characters 608
Words 106
Sentences 8
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 8, 8, 9
Lines Amount 25
Letters per line (avg) 17
Words per line (avg) 4
Letters per stanza (avg) 142
Words per stanza (avg) 35
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

31 sec read
45

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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