William Butler Yeats wrote “Sailing to Byzantium” in 1928, when he
was 60; he was exploring the experience of growing old. “An aged man is but a
paltry thing.” Hard truth, to be sure. Yeats figuratively consults the sages of
ancient Byzantium—the seat of the Eastern Church—on how to reconcile the old
body/soul human dilemma.
These days men are more likely to turn to cosmetic surgeons and investment
bankers than gold-mosaiced lords and ladies of a former empire when confronting
their age, but this is still worth consideration.
“Sailing to Byzantium”
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.
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