Chosen

W. B. Yeatsfirst published 1929from The Winding Stair and Other Poems18 lines

The lot of love is chosen. I learnt that muchStruggling for an image on the trackOf the whirling Zodiac.Scarce did he my body touch,Scarce sank he from the westOr found a subterranean restOn the maternal midnight of my breastBefore I had marked him on his northern way,And seemed to stand although in bed I lay.

I struggled with the horror of daybreak,I chose it for my lot! If questioned onMy utmost pleasure with a manBy some new-married bride, I takeThat stillness for a themeWhere his heart my heart did seemAnd both adrift on the miraculous streamWhere—wrote a learned astrologer—The Zodiac is changed into a sphere.

Text: The Winding Stair and Other Poems (Macmillan, London, 1933). Public domain.

In brief

Summary

A woman chooses love's pain and remembers a moment of perfect union.

The woman declares that "The lot of love is chosen", a lesson learnt by struggling, as if tracking the sun through "the whirling Zodiac". Her lover is pictured as the sun: he sinks in the west to rest on "the maternal midnight of my breast", and all too soon she sees him on his way again. In the second stanza she chooses "the horror of daybreak", the parting, as her lot. Asked by a new bride about her greatest pleasure with a man, she would speak of a stillness when their hearts seemed one, adrift on a "miraculous stream" where the Zodiac becomes a sphere.

Lines to remember

The lot of love is chosen. I learnt that much

The Zodiac is changed into a sphere.

Line by line

Lines 1 to 9The sun's course
Her lover is imagined as the sun on its daily track. "Scarce did he my body touch" before he sank "from the west" into a "subterranean rest" on her breast, and before she knew it she had marked him "on his northern way" again. A night of love passes as quickly as the sun's journey through the dark.
Lines 10 to 18The stillness
She fought "the horror of daybreak" but chose it all the same. If a new bride asked about her "utmost pleasure with a man", she would describe a stillness, their hearts seeming one on "the miraculous stream" where, as "a learned astrologer" wrote, the Zodiac becomes a sphere.

Themes

Choice

The first sentence is the poem's claim: "The lot of love is chosen." Love here is not fate but a decision, made knowing the pain it brings. In the second stanza she chooses even "the horror of daybreak", accepting the parting in which every night of love must end.

Union

The poem's highest moment is not passion but stillness, when "his heart my heart did seem". The Zodiac, a band of separate signs, turns into a sphere, a single perfect shape. It is an image of two people made one, beyond time and its daily partings.

Context

This is the sixth poem of "A Woman Young and Old", first published in The Winding Stair (New York, 1929) and collected in The Winding Stair and Other Poems (1933). Its astrological imagery reflects Yeats's long interest in occult symbolism, and the Zodiac picks up an image from "A First Confession". The "learned astrologer" is not named in the poem.

Form

Two nine-line stanzas rhymed ABBACCCDD ("west", "rest", "breast"; "way", "lay"). Line lengths vary, swelling to five beats in the triplet and closing couplet. Sentences run across the line endings, and the intricate shape suits the poem's winding, learned imagery.