Analysis of Grey Gull
Robert William Service 1874 – 1958
'Twas on an iron, icy day
I saw a pirate gull down-plane,
And hover in a wistful way
Nigh where my chickens picked their grain.
An outcast gull, so grey and old,
Withered of leg I watched it hop,
By hunger goaded and by cold,
To where each fowl full-filled its crop.
They hospitably welcomed it,
And at the food rack gave it place;
It ate and ate, it preened a bit,
By way way of gratitude and grace.
It parleyed with my barnyard cock,
Then resolutely winged away;
But I am fey in feather talk,
And this is what I heard it say:
"I know that you and all your tribe
Are shielded warm and fenced from fear;
With food and comfort you would bribe
My weary wings to linger here.
An outlaw scarred and leather-lean,
I battle with the winds of woe:
You think me scaly and unclean...
And yet my soul you do not know,
"I storm the golden gates of day,
I wing the silver lanes of night;
I plumb the deep for finny prey,
On wave I sleep in tempest height.
Conceived was I by sea and sky,
Their elements are fused in me;
Of brigand birds that float and fly
I am the freest of the free.
"From peak to plain, from palm to pine
I coast creation at my will;
The chartless solitudes are mine,
And no one seeks to do me ill.
Until some cauldron of the sea
Shall gulp for me and I shall cease...
Oh I have lived enormously
And I shall have prodigious peace."
With yellow bill and beady eye
This spoke, I think, that old grey gull;
And as I watched it Southward fly
Life seemed to be a-sudden dull.
For I have often held this thought -
If I could change this mouldy me,
By heaven! I would choose the lot,
Of all the gypsy birds, to be
A gull that spans the spacious sea.
Scheme | ABABCDCD EFEFXAXA GXGXHIHI AJAJKLKL MNMNLOLO KPKPXLXLL |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11110101 11010111 01000101 11110111 1111101 10111111 11010011 11111111 11101 01011111 11011101 11111001 111111 1100101 11110101 01111111 11110111 11010111 11010111 11011101 1110101 11010111 1111001 01111111 11010111 11010111 1101111 11110101 01111101 11001101 1111101 11010101 11111111 11010111 01111 01111111 01110101 11110111 11110100 01110101 11010101 11111111 01111101 11110101 11110111 11111101 11011101 11010111 01110101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,610 |
Words | 331 |
Sentences | 14 |
Stanzas | 6 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 9 |
Lines Amount | 49 |
Letters per line (avg) | 26 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 211 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 55 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:39 min read
- 84 Views
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"Grey Gull" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 19 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/32157/grey-gull>.
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