Poem by William Butler Yeats

The Choice

The intellect of man is forced to choose
perfection of the life, or of the work,
And if it take the second must refuse
A heavenly mansion, raging in the dark.
When all that story's finished, what's the news?
In luck or out the toil has left its mark:
That old perplexity an empty purse,
Or the day's vanity, the night's remorse. 

1. For Anne Gregory
2. The Old Men Admiring Themselves in the Water
3. The Rose of Battle
4. The Rose of the World
5. The Lover Tells of the Rose in His Heart

Lucy Montgomery The Choice ("Life, come to me in no pale guise and ashen")

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