Analysis of Orphan School



Full fifty merry maids I heard
          One summer morn a-singing;
And each was like a joyous bird
          With spring-clear not a-ringing.
It was an old-time soldier song
          That held their happy voices:
Oh how it's good to swing along
                    When youth rejoices!

Then lo! I dreamed long years had gone,
          They passed again ungladly.
Their backs were bent, their cheeks were wan,
          Their eyes were staring sadly.
Their ranks were thinned by full a score
          From death's remorseless reaping
Their steps were slow, they sang no more,--
                    Nay, some were weeping.

Dark dream! I saw my maids today
          Singing so innocently;
Their eyes with happiness were gay,
          They looked at me so gently.
Thought I: Be merry in your youth
          With hearts unrueing:
Thank God you do not know the truth
                    Of Life's Undoing!


Scheme ABABCDCD XEXEFBFB GEGEHBHB
Poetic Form
Metre 11010111 1101010 01110101 1111010 11111101 1111010 11111101 111 11111111 11011 11011101 1101010 11011101 1101010 11011111 11010 11111101 1011000 11110001 1111110 11110011 111 11111101 11010
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 891
Words 137
Sentences 10
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 8, 8, 8
Lines Amount 24
Letters per line (avg) 25
Words per line (avg) 6
Letters per stanza (avg) 198
Words per stanza (avg) 45
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

42 sec read
56

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…

All Robert William Service poems | Robert William Service Books

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