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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. 



William Butler Yeats


William Butler Yeats's other poems:
  1. The Pity of Love
  2. The Lamentation of the Old Pensioner
  3. The Dedication to a Book of Stories Selected from the Irish Novelists
  4. To Ireland in the Coming Times
  5. The Old Men Admiring Themselves in the Water


Poems of the other poets with the same name:

  • Dante Rossetti The Choice ("Think thou and act; to-morrow thou shalt die")
  • Edith Nesbit The Choice ("PLAGUE take the dull and dusty town")
  • George Wither The Choice ("Me so oft my fancy drew")
  • Lucy Montgomery The Choice ("Life, come to me in no pale guise and ashen")
  • Katharine Tynan The Choice ("When skies are blue and days are bright")

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