"Sailing to Byzantium" by William Butler Yeats

 

Sailing to Byzantium

I

 

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.

 

 

II

 

An aged man is but a paltry thing,

A tattered coat upon a stick, unless

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

To the holy city of Byzantium.

 

 

III

 

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.

 

 

IV

 

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.

Enjoy the poem with beautiful music.

poem video👇

https://youtu.be/fbw_Ipnp3jk

Who wrote the poem "Sailing to Byzantium"?

William Butler Yeats (June 13, 1865 – January 28, 1939)

William Butler Yeats was an Irish poet, playwright, prose writer, and is widely considered as one of the greatest poets of the 20^th century. He was born to the Protestant, Anglo-Irish community that considered themselves English people born in Ireland and had largely controlled the economic, political, and social life of Ireland. However, Yeats strongly affirmed his Irish nationality and found inspiration in Irish legends and the occult in his early career. Later his poetry became more physical and realistic. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1923. 

"Sailing to Byzantium" explanation

In the poem, the speaker (an old man) tells the story of a journey to Byzantium, an old Greek colony (later Constantinople, and then Istanbul, Turkey). He describes a sense of alienation he experienced in his country (perhaps Ireland) where only the young and new and the worldly pleasures (“sensual music”) are appreciated, with “monuments of unaging intellect” neglected. He leaves his country and sails to Byzantium, a historical place known as a center for arts and intellectualism, where his artistic legacy can be appreciated for eternity. The poem was written in the late 1920’s when the poet was in his 60’s. Some speculate that the old man (the speaker) in this poem reflects the poet’s own feeling of alienation then in Ireland.