Sailing+to+Byzantium

** Photo by LaTur

Sailing to Byzantium**

//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 Whatever is begotten, born, and dies. Caught in that sensual music all neglect Monuments of unageing intellect.

An aged man is but a paltry thing,// //A tattered coat upon a stick, unless Soul slap 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// //To the holy city of// Byzantium.

//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.// 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.

//Once out of nature I shall never take My bodily form from any natural thing, But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make Of hammered gold and gold enamelling// To keep a drowsy Emperor awake; //Or set upon a golden bough to sing To lords and ladies of Byzantium// Of what is past, or passing, or to come.

**Yeats contemplates the limits of the human condition and the transcendence of art in "Sailing to Byzantium." By selecting an elderly man as the poem's narrator, Yeats explores the holy city of Byzantium, which serves as a symbol for unaging intellect. The narrator, who feels trapped inside of a deteriorating body, attempts to enter eternity through art by leaving nature behind. (See "Notes on Sailing to Byzantium **" **Page)** Back to W. B. Yeats

Abrams, M. H. & Steven Greenblatt (Ed.) (2001). //The Norton Anthology of English Literature//. New York and London: W. W. Norton & Company.
 * References:**

LaTur. Photo Sailing to Byzantium. [|**flickr.com/photos/ 69861074@N00/2700123371**] 2 December 2008