Tom



That Tom was poor was sure a pity,
      Such guts for learning had the lad;
He took to Greek like babe to titty,
      And he was mathematic mad.
I loved to prime him up with knowledge,
      A brighter lad I never knew;
I dreamed that he would go to college
      And there be honoured too.
      
But no! His Dad said, "Son, I need you
      To keep the kettle on the boil;
No longer can I clothe and feed you,
      Buy study books and midnight oil.
I carry on as best I'm able,
      A humble tailor, as you know;
And you must squat cross-legged a table
      And learn to snip and sew."

And that is what poor Tom is doing.
      He bravely makes the best of it;
But as he "fits" you he is knowing
      That he himself is a misfit;
And thinks as he fulfils his calling,
      With patient heart yet deep distaste,
Like clippings from his shears down-falling,
                 --He, too, is Waste.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 11, 2023

49 sec read
43

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABABXCXC CDCDEFEF GHGHGIGI
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 887
Words 166
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…

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