Arucaria's Party - Meandering - Variants

So it seems Arucaria had a party in the Guardian offices, with guests including Prunella Scales and Simon Hoggart, who are both fans.  And lots of other compilers.  SH had a piece in the paper praising him mid-week, where we also found out that John Graham is an old left-winger who would never work for Murdoch (Yay!).  See Fifteen Squared for party photos.

At one point earlier in the week, I had thought his birthday was St Valentine's Day.  So I started to think about appropriate presents; I remembered the theory that St Valentine's Day was instigated by Chaucer - as the first mention of the 14th of February as a special day for wooing seems to be in The Parlement of Foules.

So I went looking for the text for a POTW, and instead found sites of textual criticism.  It seems that there are two variant readings, which different editors have championed over the years.

Here are the first few lines in each variant:

The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne,
Thassay so hard, so sharp the conquering,
The dredful Ioy, that alwey slit so yerne,
Al this mene I by love, that my feling
Astonyeth with his wonderful worching
So sore y-wis, that whan I on him thinke,
Nat wot I wel wher that I wake or winke.

The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne,
Th'assay so hard, so sharp the conquerynge,
The dredful joye alwey that slit so yerne,
Al this mene I by Love, that my felynge
Astonyeth with his wonderful workynge
So sore, iwis, that whan I on hym thynke,
Nat wot I wel wher that I flete or synke.

I got completely sidetracked by this.  Then I realised that the 14th wasn't Arucaria's birthday after all.

Anyway, which text do you prefer?