Dillard asks "Then What?" and Yeats "What Then?"

What Then?

by William Butler Yeats

His chosen comrades though at school

He must grow a famous man;

He though the same and lived by rule,

All his twenties crammed with toil;

“What then?” sang Plato’s ghost. “What then?”

Everything he wrote was read,

After certain years he won

Sufficients money for his need,

Friends that have been friends indeed;

“What then?” sang Plato’s ghost. “What then?”

All his happier dreams came true –

A small house, wife, dauhter, son,

Grounds where plum and cabbage grew,

Poats and Wits about him drew;

“What then?” sang Plato’s ghost. “What then?”

“The work is done” grown old he though,

“According to my boyish plan;

Let the fools rage, I swerved in naught,

Something to perfection bought”;

But louder sang that ghost, “What then?”