Analysis of The Host



I never could imagine God:
I don't suppose I ever will.
Beside His altar fire I nod
With senile drowsiness but still
In old of age as sight grows dim
          I have a sense of Him.

For when I count my sum of days
I find so many sweet and good,
My mind is full of peace and praise,
My heart aglow with gratitude.
For my long living in the sun
          I want to thank someone.

Someone who has been kind to me;
Some power within, if not on high,
Who shaped my gentle destiny,
And led me pleasant pastures by:
Who taught me, whether gay or grave,
          To love the life He gave.

A Host of charity and cheer,
Within a Tavern warm and bright;
Who smiles and bids me have no fear
As forth I fare into the night:
From whom I beg no Heav'n, but bless
          For earthly happiness.


Scheme ABABCC DXDXEE FGFGHH IJIJXX
Poetic Form
Metre 11010101 11011101 011101011 1110011 01111111 110111 11111111 11110101 11111101 1101110 11110001 11111 1111111 110011111 11110100 01110101 11110111 110111 01110001 01010101 11011111 11110101 11111111 110100
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 777
Words 154
Sentences 7
Stanzas 4
Stanza Lengths 6, 6, 6, 6
Lines Amount 24
Letters per line (avg) 24
Words per line (avg) 6
Letters per stanza (avg) 142
Words per stanza (avg) 38
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

46 sec read
129

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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