Sailing To Byzantium Poem 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 unaging 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.
This is poem about the brevity of youth and beauty It is written with such insight and majesty that i am overwhelmed. We all have lived or are living or soon will this glorious brief spell Remember and revel in it to the depths of your soul then Let go Donal
I believe (correctly, I hope) it was Henry Ford, the creator of the production line for auto manufacturing, who, when asked about the color for his automobiles, famously said: 'You can have any color you like, as long as it's black.' I believe you can rate this poem any way you like, as long as it's 10. :)
A joy to read and to listen to. Hearing Yeats read it on YouTube is a treat.
THIS HAS BECOME A TIMELESS CLASSICAL PIECE OF POETRY & IS ALSO INCLUDED IN THE CURRICULUM OF ENGLISH LITERATURE OF MANY UNIVERSITIES! PEOPLE DARING TO RATE SUCH A MASTERPIECE DO NO DISCRETID TO YEATS - BUT ONLY TO THEMSELVES! ! ! ! ! -RAJ NANDY
A really beautiful contrast to this poem by Yeats is 'I Am Listening to Istanbul', by the famous Turkish poet Orhan Veli Kanik. An exquisite poem.
I like aspects of 'Sailing to Byzantium' by Yeats, but it is obvious Yeats had not been there, the light, the colour, the smells are all missing.
Yeats simply says through this poem that the animate nature is devoid of spirit and temporary only but the inanimate art, poetry created by him is full of spirit and is immortal and permanent.
In My Top five Poems. Swapping places at times with William Blake's Tyger Tyger for the number one spot. Ever since I figured out how to read Blake's Rhyming. I have yet to hear any Poetry Reader rhyme " What immortal hand or eye" correctly to " frame thy fearful symmetry" Eye and 'try' in symmetry gots to rhyme yo.
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem
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4/19/2024 12:43:34 AM # 1.0.0.1119
One of the signal poems of the Twentieth Century, included in every anthology of English poetry.