The Choice
The Choice
Original Text
Yeats, William Butler. W. B. Yeats: Selected Poetry: 153. Ed. by A. Norman Jeffares. London: Macmillan, 1968.
1The intellect of man is forced to choose
2perfection of the life, or of the work,
3And if it take the second must refuse
4A heavenly mansion, raging in the dark.
5When all that story's finished, what's the news?
6In luck or out the toil has left its mark:
7That old perplexity an empty purse,
8Or the day's vanity, the night's remorse.
Publication Start Year
1933
Publication Notes
The Winding Star and Other Poems, 1933.
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire, assisted by Ana Berdinskikh
RPO Edition
2009
Rhyme
Form