Man Child



All day he lay upon the sand
When summer sun was bright,
And let the grains sift through his hand
With infantile delight;
Just like a child, so soft  and fair,
Though he was twenty-five -
An innocent, my mother -care
Had kept so long alive.

Oh it is hard to bear a cross
For five-and-twenty years;
A daft son and a husband's loss
Are woes out-weighing tears.
Yet bright and beautiful was he,
Though barely could he walk;
And when he signaled out to sea
His talk was baby talk.

The man I loved was drowned out there
When we were ten weeks wed.
'Tis bitter hard a boy to bear
That's fathered by the dead.
And now I give my life to him
Because he needs me so;
And as I look my sight is dim
With pity, love and woe. . . .

Then suddenly I see him rise,
Tall, stalwart and serene . . .
Lo! There he stands before my eyes,
The man he might have been.

"Dear Mother mine," I hear him say,
"The curse that bound me fast,
Some miracle has swept away,
And all you pain is past.
Now I am strong and sane and free,
And you shall have your due;
For as you loved and cherished me,
I'll love and cherish you."

His kisses sooth away my pain,
His clasp is paradise . . .
Then - then I look at him again
With terror in my eyes:

For down he sinks upon the sand,
And heavy droops his head;
The golden grains drift through his hand . . .
I know - my boy is dead.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 16, 2023

1:21 min read
49

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABABCDCD EXEXFGFG CHCHIJIJ KXKX LMLMFNFN XXXK AHAH
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 1,304
Words 269
Stanzas 7
Stanza Lengths 8, 8, 8, 4, 8, 4, 4

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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