Chosen
Chosen - meaning Summary
Love as Chosen Lot
Yeats portrays love as a deliberate fate chosen rather than accidental. The speaker recalls a brief, barely physical encounter that nonetheless felt profound, a stillness in which hearts aligned. Astrological imagery—the Zodiac shifting into a sphere—frames this intimacy as part mystical, part decided destiny. The poem balances erotic memory with contemplative calm, suggesting that fleeting passion can be embraced as one’s appointed lot.
Read Complete AnalysesThe lot of love is chosen. I learnt that much Struggling for an image on the track Of the whirling Zodiac. Scarce did he my body touch, Scarce sank he from the west Or found a subtetranean rest On the maternal midnight of my breast Before 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 on My utmost pleasure with a man By some new-married bride, I take That stillness for a theme Where his heart my heart did seem And both adrift on the miraculous stream Where -- wrote a learned astrologer -- The Zodiac is changed into a sphere.
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