Simplicity



What I seek far yet seldom find
Is large simplicity of mind
                     In fellow men;
For I have sprouted from the sod,
Like Bobbie Burns, my earthly god,
                     --From plough to pen.
                     
So I refuse my brain to vex
With problems prosy and complex,
                     Beyond my scope;
To me simplicity is peace,
So I persue it without cease,
                     And growing hope.

"The world is too much with us," wrote
Wise Wordsworth, whom I love to quote,
                     When rhymes are coy;
And simple is the world I see,
With bud and bloom and brook and tree
                     To give me joy.

So blissfully I slip away
From brazen and dynamic day
                     To dingle cool . . .
Now tell me friend, if in your eyes,
By being simple I am wise,--
                     Or just a fool?

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

39 sec read
58

Quick analysis:

Scheme AABCCB DDEFFE GGHIIH JJKLLK
Closest metre Iambic trimeter
Characters 833
Words 134
Stanzas 4
Stanza Lengths 6, 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…

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