Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

CHOICE OF EXIT by WILLIAM ROSE BENET

Poet Analysis

First Line: O SOME DAY
Last Line: AND I SHALL NOT RETURN.
Subject(s): DAY;
O some day,
Some fine day
When summer's in the air
And the grass as green as beryl,
When clouds are white as old Time's hair
And woods are bright as bronze, and wear
A glamour past all peril,
And finches sing and thrushes sing
And sunlight shakes the sky,
I shall go up some road with Spring
And find a place to die.

It's a bright life,
A black life,
By eerie fits and starts --
Buckets of tears, and oceans
Of aching laughter known to hearts
That strike a pose to play their parts
And thrive on idle notions,
And bowstrings sing and trumpets sing
And love sings high, sings low. . . .
Well, I'll go up the road with Spring
When it's my time to go!

Not at midnight
When the clock ticks,
When the coal clicks in the grate
And the mind of man grows teary!
No! I'll stalk forth from a garden gate
Some morning just at half-past eight,
Some morning when I'm weary;
And sun will sing and sky will sing
And the hills with poppies burn
When I go up the road with Spring,
King of the world and proud like a king. . . .
And I shall not return.



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