Analysis of Kings Must Die



Alphonso Rex who died in Rome
Was quite a fistful as a kid;
For when I visited his home,
That gorgeous palace in Madrid,
The grinning guide-chap showed me where
He rode his bronco up the stair.

That stairway grand of marbled might,
The most majestic in the land,
In statured splendour, flight on flight,
He urged his steed with whip in hand.
No lackey could restrain him for
He gained the gilded corridor.

He burst into the Royal suite,
And like a cowboy whooped with glee;
Dodging the charger's flying feet
The Chamberlain was shocked to see:
Imagine how it must have been a
Grief to Mother Queen Christina!

And so through sheer magnificence
I roamed from stately room to room,
Yet haunted ever by the sense
Of tragical dynastic doom.
The walls were wailing: Kings must die,
Being plain blokes like you and I.

Well, here's the moral to my rhyme:
When memories more worthy fade
We find that whimsically Time
Conserves some crazy escapade.
So as I left I stood to stare
With humorous enjoyment where
Alphonso crashed the Palace stair.


Scheme ABABCC DEDEXX FGFGHH IJIJKK LMLMCCC
Poetic Form
Metre 01011101 11010101 11110011 11010001 01011111 11110101 1111101 01010001 011111 11111101 11010111 11010100 11010101 0101111 1001101 01001111 010111110 11101010 01111 11110111 11010101 110101 01010111 10111101 11010111 11001101 1111001 111010 11111111 11000101 01010101
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 1,011
Words 186
Sentences 9
Stanzas 5
Stanza Lengths 6, 6, 6, 6, 7
Lines Amount 31
Letters per line (avg) 27
Words per line (avg) 6
Letters per stanza (avg) 165
Words per stanza (avg) 37
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 14, 2023

56 sec read
80

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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