Ant Hill
Robert William Service 1874 – 1958
Black ants have made a musty mound
My purple pine tree under,
And I am often to be found,
Regarding it with wonder.
Yet as I watch, somehow it;s odd,
Above their busy striving
I feel like an ironic god
Surveying human striving.
Then one day came my serving maid,
And just in time I caught her,
For on each lusty arm she weighed
A pail of boiling water.
She said with glee: "When this I spill,
Of life they'll soon be lacking."
Said I: "If even one you kill,
You bitch! I'll send you packing."
Just think - ten thousand eager lives
In that toil-worn upcasting,
Their homes, their babies and their wives
Destroyed in one fell blasting!
Imagine that swift-scalding hell! . . .
And though, mayhap, it seems a
Fantastic, far-fetched parallel -
Remember . . . Hiroshima.
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 01, 2023
- 42 sec read
- 117 Views
Quick analysis:
Scheme | ABABCDCDEBEBFDFD XDXDGHGH |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 749 |
Words | 140 |
Stanzas | 2 |
Stanza Lengths | 16, 8 |
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"Ant Hill" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 19 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/31983/ant-hill>.
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