Analysis of Reverence
Robert William Service 1874 – 1958
I saw the Greatest Man on Earth,
Aye, saw him with my proper eyes.
A loin-cloth spanned his proper girth,
But he was naked otherwise,
Excepting for his grey sombrero;
And when his domelike head he bared,
With reverence I stared and stared,
As mummified as any Pharaoh.
He leaned upon a little cane,
A big cigar was in his mouth;
Through spectacles of yellow stain
He gazed and gazed toward the South;
And then he dived into the sea,
As if to Corsica to swim;
His side stroke was so strong and free
I could not help but envy him.
A fitter man than I, I said,
Although his age is more than mine;
And I was strangely comforted
To see him battle in the brine.
Thought I: We have no cause for sorrow;
For one so dynamic to-day
Will gird him for the future fray
And lead us lion-like to-morrow.
The Greatest Man in all the world
Lay lazing like you or me,
Within a flimsy bathrobe curled
Upon a mattress by the sea:
He reached to pat a tou-tou's nose,
And scratched his torso now and then,
And scribbled with a fountain pen
What I assumed was jewelled prose.
And then methought he looked at me,
And hailed me with a gesture grand;
His fingers made the letter "V,"
So I, too, went to raise my hand; -
When nigh to me the barman glided
With liquid gold, and then I knew
He merely called for cock-tails two,
And so abjectly I subsided.
Yet I have had my moment's glory,
A-squatting nigh that Mighty Tory,
Proud Hero of our Island Story.
Scheme | ABABCDDC EFEFGHGH XIJICKKC LGLGMNNM GOGOJPPJ GGG |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11010111 11111101 01111101 1111010 10111010 0111111 11001101 11011010 11010101 01011011 11001101 11010101 01110101 11110011 11111101 11111101 01011111 1111111 01110100 11110001 111111110 11101011 11110101 011101110 01010101 111111 0101011 01010101 11110111 0111101 01010101 1101111 0111111 01110101 11010101 11111111 111101010 11010111 11011111 0111010 111111010 010111010 1101101010 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,393 |
Words | 277 |
Sentences | 9 |
Stanzas | 6 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 3 |
Lines Amount | 43 |
Letters per line (avg) | 26 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 184 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 46 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:23 min read
- 78 Views
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"Reverence" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 10 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/32399/reverence>.
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