Jaloppy Joy



Past ash cans and alley cats,
Fetid. overflowing gutters,
Leprous lines of rancid flats
Where the frowsy linen flutters;
With a rattle and a jar,
hark! I sing a happy ditty,
As I speed my Master far
From the poison of the City.

Speed him to the sportive sea,
Watch him walloping the briny,
Light his pipe and brew his tea
In a little wood that's piny;
Haven him to peace of mind.
Drowsy dreams in pleasant places,
Where the woman's eyes are kind,
And the men have ruddy faces.

Just a jaloppy am I,
But he's always been my lover,
So each Sunday morn I try
Youthful joy to re-discover.
For he loves the wild and free,
And though he would never know it,
Nature thrills him with the glee
And the rapture of the poet.

He's a little invoice clerk,
I'm a worn and ancient flivver;
I have an asthmatic spark,
He an alcoholic liver;
Yet with clatter, clang and creak
We are lyrical for one day;
Then another loathly week,
Living for another Sunday.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

55 sec read
80

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABABCDCD DXDDEFEF GHGHDXDX XCXHIJIJ
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 916
Words 179
Stanzas 4
Stanza Lengths 8, 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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