Analysis of My Boss
Robert William Service 1874 – 1958
My Boss keeps sporty girls, they say;
His belly's big with cheer.
He squanders in a single day
What I make in a year.
For I must toil with bloody sweat,
And body bent and scarred,
While my whole life-gain he could bet
Upon a single card.
By Boss is big and I am small;
I slave to keep him rich.
He'd look at me like scum and call
Me something of a bitch . . .
Ah no! he wouldn't use that phrase
To designate my mother:
Despite his high and mighty ways,
My Boss is my twin-brother.
Conceived were we in common joy
And born in common pain;
But while I was a brawny boy
My brother stole my brain.
As dumb was I as he was smart,
As blind as he could see;
And so it was, bang from the start
He got the best of me.
I'm one of many in his pay;
From him I draw my dough;
But he would fire me right away
If he should hap to know
A week ago he passed me by;
I heard his wheezing breath,
And in his pouched and blood-shot eye
I saw, stark-staring - Death.
He has his women, cards and wine;
I have my beans and bread.
But oh, the last laugh will be mine
The day I hear he's dead.
Aye, though we shared a common womb
(I gloat to think of it)
Some day I'll stand beside his tomb
And loose my glob and . . . spit.
Scheme | ABABCDCD EFEFGHGH IJIJKLKL AMAMNONO PQPQRSRS |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Etheree (30%) |
Metre | 11110111 11111 11000101 111001 11111101 010101 11111111 010101 11110111 111111 11111101 110101 11110111 110110 01110101 1111110 01010101 010101 11110101 110111 11111111 111111 01111101 110111 11110011 111111 111101101 111111 01011111 111101 00110111 111101 11110101 111101 11011111 011111 11110101 111111 11110111 011101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,167 |
Words | 252 |
Sentences | 19 |
Stanzas | 5 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 8, 8, 8, 8 |
Lines Amount | 40 |
Letters per line (avg) | 22 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 178 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 51 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 14, 2023
- 1:17 min read
- 148 Views
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"My Boss" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 27 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/32264/my-boss>.
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