Sailing to
by W. B. Yeats
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 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
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.
