Analysis of Birthday



(16th January 1949)

I thank whatever gods may be
For all the happiness that's mine;
That I am festive, fit and free
To savour women, wit and wine;
That I may game of golf enjoy,
And have a formidable drive:
In short, that I'm a gay old boy
Though I be
                    Seventy-and-five.

My daughter thinks. because I'm old
(I'm not a crock, when all is said),
I mustn't let my feet get cold,
And should wear woollen socks in bed;
A worsted night-cap too, forsooth!
To humour her I won't contrive:
A man is in his second youth
When he is
                    Seventy-and-five.

At four-score years old age begins,
And not till then, I warn my wife;
At eighty I'll recant my sins,
And live a staid and sober life.
But meantime let me whoop it up,
And tell the world that I'm alive:
Fill to the brim the bubbly cup -
Here's health to
                    Seventy-and-five!


Scheme a ababcdcaD efefgdgxD hihijdjxD
Poetic Form
Metre 11100 1110111 11010011 11110101 1110101 11111101 01010001 01110111 111 10001 11010111 11011111 11011111 01110101 0101111 1101101 01101101 111 10001 11111101 01111111 11010111 01010101 1111111 01011101 11010101 111 10001
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 850
Words 157
Sentences 7
Stanzas 4
Stanza Lengths 1, 9, 9, 9
Lines Amount 28
Letters per line (avg) 22
Words per line (avg) 6
Letters per stanza (avg) 152
Words per stanza (avg) 39
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on May 04, 2023

49 sec read
116

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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