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,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unaging intellect.
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
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.
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 lords and ladies of Byzantium
-- William Butler Yeats
