The Tower (Yeats)/Sailing to Byzantium
SAILING TO BYZANTIUM
IThat is no country for old men. The youngIn 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 longWhatever is begotten born and dies.Caught in that sensual music all neglectMonuments of unaging intellect.IIAn aged man is but a paltry thing,A tattered coat upon a stick, unless Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder singFor every tatter in its mortal dress,Nor is there singing school but studyingMonuments of its own magnificence;And therefore I have sailed the seas and comeTo the holy city of Byzantium.IIIO sages standing in God's holy fireAs 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 desireAnd fastened to a dying animalIt knows not what it is; and gather meInto the artifice of eternity.
IVOnce out of nature I shall never takeMy bodily form from any natural thing,But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths makeOf hammered gold and gold enamellingTo keep a drowsy emperor awake;Or set upon a golden bough to singTo lords and ladies of ByzantiumOf what is past, or passing, or to come.
1927
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1930.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1939, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 85 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse