Analysis of Gentle Gaoler
Robert William Service 1874 – 1958
Being a gaoler I'm supposed
To be a hard-boiled guy;
Yet never prison walls enclosed
A kinder soul than I:
Passing my charges precious pills
To end their ills.
And if in gentle sleep they die,
And pass to pleasant peace,
No one suspects that it is I
Who gave them their release:
No matter what the Doctor thinks,
The Warden winks.
A lifer's is a fearful fate;
It wrings the heart of me.
And what a saving to the State
A sudden death must be!
Doomed men should have the legal right
To end their plight.
And so my veronel they take,
And bid goodbye to pain;
And sleep, and never, never wake
To living hell again:
Oh call me curst or call me blest,--
I give them rest.
Scheme | ABABCC BDBDEE FGFGHH IXIXJJ |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1001101 110111 11010101 010111 10110101 1111 01010111 011101 11011111 111101 11010101 0101 0110101 110111 01010101 010111 11110101 1111 011111 01111 01010101 110101 11111111 1111 |
Closest metre | Iambic trimeter |
Characters | 770 |
Words | 133 |
Sentences | 7 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 6, 6, 6, 6 |
Lines Amount | 24 |
Letters per line (avg) | 21 |
Words per line (avg) | 5 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 128 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 33 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 40 sec read
- 67 Views
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"Gentle Gaoler" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/32142/gentle-gaoler>.
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