Annuitant



Oh I am neither rich nor poor,
     No worker I dispoil;
Yet I am glad to be secure
     From servitude and toil.
For with my lifelong savings I
     Have bought annuity;
And so unto the day I die
     I'll have my toast and tea.
     
When on the hob the kettle sings
     I'll make an amber brew,
And crunch my toast and think of things
     I do not have to do.
In dressing-gown and deep arm-chair
     I'll give the fire a poke;
Then worlds away from cark and care
     I'll smoke and smoke and smoke.

For I believe the very best
     Of Being is the last;
And I will crown with silver zest
     My patience in the past.
Since compensation is the law
     Of life it's up to me
To round the century and draw
     My Life Annuity.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

43 sec read
45

Quick analysis:

Scheme XAXABCBC DEDEFGFG HIHIACXC
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 717
Words 139
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 8, 8, 8

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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