Slugging Saint



'Twas in a pub in Battersea
      They call the "Rose and Crown,"
Quite suddenly, it seemed to me,
      The Lord was looking down;
The Lord was looking from above,
      And shiny was His face,
And I was filled with gush of love
      For all the human race.
      
Anon I saw three ancient men
      Who reckoned not of bliss,
And they looked quite astonished when
      I gave them each a kiss.
I kissed each on his balding spot
      With heart of Heaven grace . . .
And then it seemed there was a lot
      Of trouble round the place.

They had me up before the beak,
      But though I told my tale,
He sentanced me to spend a week
      In Yard of Scotland Gaol.
So when they kindly set me free
      Please don't think it amiss,
If Battling Bill of Battersea,
      For love of all humanity
               Gives you a kiss.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

44 sec read
43

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABCBDADA EAEAFAFA GHGHCAACA
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 813
Words 149
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 8, 8, 9

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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