Famous Option Poems by Famous Poets

These are examples of famous Option poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous option poems. These examples illustrate what a famous option poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).

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If I should die

...on should burn --
As it has usual done --
If Birds should build as early
And Bees as bustling go --
One might depart at option
From enterprise below!
'Tis sweet to know that stocks will stand
When we with Daisies lie --
That Commerce will continue --
And Trades as briskly fly --
It makes the parting tranquil
And keeps the soul serene --
That gentlemen so sprightly
Conduct the pleasing scene!...Read more of this...
by Dickinson, Emily


My Cicely

...eps the stage-hostel
Ten miles hence, beside the great Highway--
The famed Lions-Three.

"Her spouse was her lackey--no option
'Twixt wedlock and worse things;
A lapse over-sad for a lady
Of her pedigree!"

I shuddered, said nothing, and wandered
To shades of green laurel:
Too ghastly had grown those first tidings
So brightsome of blee!

For, on my ride hither, I'd halted
Awhile at the Lions,
And her--her whose name had once opened
My heart as a key--

I'd looked on, unknowin...Read more of this...
by Hardy, Thomas

Paradise is of the option

...Paradise is of the option.
Whosoever will
Own in Eden notwithstanding
Adam and Repeal....Read more of this...
by Dickinson, Emily

Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror

...s, he blames himself (though
Secretly satisfied with the result), imagining
He had a say in the matter and exercised
An option of which he was hardly conscious,
Unaware that necessity circumvents such resolutions.
So as to create something new
For itself, that there is no other way,
That the history of creation proceeds according to
Stringent laws, and that things
Do get done in this way, but never the things
We set out to accomplish and wanted so desperately
To see come into...Read more of this...
by Ashbery, John

The Ballad Of Gum-Boot Ben

...l and freight to town that noble boat."

 I met him later in a bar and made a gay remark
 Anent an ancient miner and an option on the Ark.
 He gazed at me reproachfully, as only topers can;
 But what he said I can't repeat--he was a bad old man....Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William


The Ballad Of Touch-The-Button Nell

...ns fine," said Riley Dooleyvitch.

"Some day you'll be so rich," she mocked; "that old pipe-dream don't go.
Who gets an option on this kid must have some coin to show.
You work your ground. When Spring comes round, our wedding bells will ring.
I'm on the square, and I'll take care of all the gold you bring."

So Riley Dooleyvitch went back and worked upon his claim;
He ditched and drifted, sunk and stoped, with one unswerving aim;
And when his poke of raw moose-hide with dust...Read more of this...
by Service, Robert William

The Quest Eternal

...d was a wowser selling "lime!" 
And the scoundrel said as he stopped to put on his lime-washed boots a rub, 
"The Local Option voted it shut, it ain't no longer a pub!" 

'Twas then I rose to my greatest heights in dignified retreat 
(The greatest men in the world's great fights are those who are great in defeat). 
I shall think with pride till the day I die of my confidence sublime, 
For I looked the wowser straight in the eye, and asked for a pint of lime....Read more of this...
by Paterson, Andrew Barton

To Certain Critics

...censure as your praise, 
For never shall the clan 
Confine my singing to its ways 
Beyond the ways of man. 

No racial option narrows grief, 
Pain is not patriot, 
And sorrow plaits her dismal leaf 
For all as lief as not. 
With blind sheep groping every hill, 
Searching an oriflamme, 
How shall the shpherd heart then thrill 
To only the darker lamb?...Read more of this...
by Cullen, Countee

We knew not that we were to live --

...t we were to live --
Nor when -- we are to die --
Our ignorance -- our cuirass is --
We wear Mortality
As lightly as an Option Gown
Till asked to take it off --
By his intrusion, God is known --
It is the same with Life --...Read more of this...
by Dickinson, Emily

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