Sailing to Byzantium
THAT is no try for old men. The young
In one anothers arms, birds irees
- Those dying geions - at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, end all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all
Mos 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
Mos of its own magnifice;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and e
To the holy city of Byzantium.
O sages standing in Gods holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
e from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
Ahe singing-masters of my soul.
e my heart away; sick with desire
And fasteo a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.
O of nature I shall ake
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Gre 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 e.