William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)
Sailing to Byzantium
I
1That is no country for old men. The young
2In one another's arms, birds in the trees
3—Those dying generations—at their song,
4The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
5Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
6Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
7Caught in that sensual music all neglect
8Monuments of unageing intellect.
II
9An aged man is but a paltry thing,
10A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
11Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
12For every tatter in its mortal dress,
13Nor is there singing school but studying
14Monuments of its own magnificence;
15And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
16To the holy city of Byzantium.
III
17O sages standing in God's holy fire
18As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
19Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
20And be the singing-masters of my soul.
21Consume my heart away; sick with desire
22And fastened to a dying animal
23It knows not what it is; and gather me
24Into the artifice of eternity.
IV
25Once out of nature I shall never take
26My bodily form from any natural thing,
27But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
28Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
29To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
30Or set upon a golden bough to sing
31To lords and ladies of Byzantium
32Of what is past, or passing, or to come.
Online text copyright © 2009, Ian Lancashire (the Department of English) and the University of Toronto.
Published by the Web Development Group, Information Technology Services, University of Toronto Libraries.
Original text: Yeats, William Burtler. W. B. Yeats: Selected Poetry: 104-105. Ed. by A. Norman Jeffares. London: Macmillan, 1968.
First publication date:
1928
Publication date note: The Tower, 1928.
RPO poem editor: Ian Lancashire, assisted by Ana Berdinskikh
RP edition: 2009
Recent editing: 1:2009/6/5*1:2009/6/5*1:2009/6/5*1:2009/6/5
Form: octaves
Rhyme: abababcc
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