Analysis of Cows



I love to watch my seven cows
In meads of buttercups abrowse,
          With guilded knees;
But even more I love to see
Them chew the cud so tranquilly
          In twilight ease.

Each is the image of content
From fragrant hours in clover spent,
          'Mid leaf and bud;
As up and down without a pause
Mechanically move their jaws
          To chew the cud.

Friend, there's a hope for me and you:
Let us resolve to chew and chew
          With molars strong;
The man who learns to masticate
With patience may control his fate,
          His life prolong.

In salivation is salvation:
So if some silly little nation
          Should bathe in blood,
Let's take a lesson from the cow,
And learn in life's long gloaming how
          To chew the cud.


Scheme aabxxb ccdeeC ffgcxg hhdiiC
Poetic Form
Metre 11111101 011101 111 11011111 110111 011 11010110 110100101 1101 11010101 0100111 1101 11011101 11011101 111 011111 11010111 1101 011010 111101010 1101 11010101 01011101 1101
Closest metre Iambic trimeter
Characters 734
Words 129
Sentences 5
Stanzas 4
Stanza Lengths 6, 6, 6, 6
Lines Amount 24
Letters per line (avg) 22
Words per line (avg) 5
Letters per stanza (avg) 131
Words per stanza (avg) 32
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

39 sec read
86

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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