Grand-Pa's Whim



While for me gapes the greedy grave
           It don't make sense
That I should have a crazy crave
           To paint our fence.
Yet that is what I aim to do,
           Though dim my sight:
Jest paint them aged pickets blue,
           Or green or white.
           
Jest squat serenely in the sun
           Wi' brush an' paint,
An' gay them pickets one by one,
           --A chore! It ain't.
The job is joy. Although I'm slow
           I save expense:
So folks, let me before I go,
           Smart that ol' fence.

Them pickets with my hands I made,
           When young and spry;
I coloured them a gleeful shade
           To glad the eye.
So now as chirpy as a boy,
           'Ere I go hence,
Once more let me jest bright to joy
           Our picket fence.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

40 sec read
85

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABABCDCD EFEFGBGB HIHIJBJB
Closest metre Iambic trimeter
Characters 752
Words 131
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 8, 8, 8

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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