January 7, 2012

Sailing to Byzantium
By: W. B. Yeats (1927)

1 That is no country for old men. The young In one another’s arms, birds in the trees —Those dying generations—at their song, The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas, Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long 5 Whatever is begotten, born, and dies. Caught in that sensual music all neglect Monuments of unageing intellect. 2 An aged man is but a paltry thing, A tattered coat upon a stick, unless 10 Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing For every tatter in its mortal dress, Nor is there singing school but studying Monuments of its own magnificence; And therefore I have sailed the seas and come 15 To the holy city of Byzantium. 3 O sages standing in God’s holy fire As in the gold mosaic of a wall, Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre, And be the singing-masters of my soul. 20 Consume my heart away; sick with desire And fastened to a dying animal It knows not what it is; and gather me Into the artifice of eternity. 4 Once out of nature I shall never take 25 My bodily form from any natural thing, But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make Of hammered gold and gold enameling To keep a drowsy Emperor awake; Or set upon a golden bough to sing 30 To lords and ladies of Byzantium Of what is past, or passing, or to come.

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