A Bachelor



'Why keep a cow when I can buy,'
          Said he, 'the milk I need,'
I wanted to spit in his eye
          Of selfishness and greed;
But did not, for the reason he
          Was stronger than I be.

I told him: ''Tis our human fate,
          For better or for worse,
That man and maid should love and mate,
          And little children nurse.
Of course, if you are less than man
          You can't do what we can.

'So many loving maids would wed,
          And wondrous mothers be.'
'I'll buy the love I want,' he said,
          'No squally brats for me.'
. . . I hope the devil stoketh well
          For him a special hell.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on May 01, 2023

33 sec read
441

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABABCC DEDEFF GCGCHH
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 621
Words 116
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 6, 6, 6

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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