Sailing to Byzantium - W.B Yeats
Poem
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.
Description of poem
A
Willam Butler Yeats (1865-1939) was one of the most important modern ports.
He exerted significant influence on his contemporaries as well his successors.
He was an Irish and he could never council himself with English habits.
He was a dreamer and a visionary.
He was influenced by the superstitions of Irish peasantry.
Like them, he believed in fairies, demons gnomes, the truth of dreams and is personal and immorality
With this temperament, Yeats felt strange in this modern world of science.
Yeats trusted in imagination.
He believed that modern civilisation effects with fundamental consciousness.
He went deep in mythology.
Yeats, attempt was to revive the beliefs of ancient times.
He felt that modern civilisation had tamed it on dry logic and cold reason.
He led the revolt of the soul against the intellect.
He tried to rediscover those symbols which has a popular appeal in ancient times.
These symbols can even now touch the man's hidden selves.
It will awaken his deepest consciousness of love and death.
All these and many more factors inclined Yeats towards symbolism.
He regarded that both imagery and rhythm can work as an incantation to rouse universal emotions.
One important symbol of Yeats was the 'moon' which stands for life's mystery.
According to him, a poet is one who tell the most ancient story in a manner that appeals even today.
B
The disintegration of modern civilisation under the impact of war pained Yeats.
In his poem 'The second coming' he describes what lies at the root of the melody. "Things fall apart, the center cannot hold"
The poem is about the agony of old age.
The individual wishes to remain even when the heart is, "fastened to a dying animal".
Yeats solution is to leave the country and sail to Byzantium.
Sailing to Byzantium is a short poem of 32 lines, divided into 4 numbers, stanzas. The Title suggests an escape.
Here the sages of the city's famous gold mosaics could become his 'singing soul'.
Here he hopes the Sage would come in the fire and take his soul away.
There he would exist in, "the artifice of eternity"
In the end, the poet says that once of the body, he would become a golden bird, sitting on a golden tree, singing of the past, present and future.
Sailing to Byzantium is a poem from his collection 'Tower'.
The stanzas we find are in 'Oltavarime' consisting of eight lines.
Byzantium (Constantinople) is as a metaphor for a spiritual journey.
Yeats explores his thoughts and musings on how immorality, art, and the human spirit may converge.
Through various poetic techniques, the poem describes the metaphorical journey of a man, pursuing his own vision of eternal life as well as his conception of paradise.
But wherever they are, the prayers will be received.
It is a qualified and dignified prayer.
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