Sailing to Byzantium: Summary with Text lines

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Sailing to Byzantium is a famous poem by W. B. Yeats, written in 1926. In this poem, Yeats talks about growing old and wanting to leave the physical world behind to find peace and wisdom. He feels that the world of young people is full of love, fun, and physical pleasures, but there is no place for old people who want to focus on the soul and deeper meaning of life.

To escape this world, the poet imagines a journey to Byzantium, an ancient and holy city. For Yeats, Byzantium is a symbol of spiritual beauty and everlasting art. He wants to leave his weak, aging body and become something eternal—like a work of art that never dies.

Text and Summary

Stanza 1:

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.

Summary:

  • The speaker begins by rejecting the world of youth and sensual pleasure.
  • “That is no country for old men” means the physical world is not suitable for aging people.
  • Young lovers embrace each other, birds sing, fish swim in rivers and seas—everything is caught in the cycle of life and death.
  • “Whatever is begotten, born, and dies” refers to the endless process of birth and death.
  • People are so absorbed in sensory pleasures that they ignore intellectual and spiritual achievements ("monuments of unageing intellect").

Stanza 2:

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.

Summary:

  • The speaker says that an old man is a "paltry thing"—worthless—like a scarecrow ("a tattered coat upon a stick").
  • However, if the soul sings with joy, it gives meaning to aging life.
  • The soul must "clap its hands and sing" even louder to compensate for the body's decay.
  • True learning comes not from physical pleasures, but from studying spiritual and artistic greatness—“monuments of its own magnificence.”
  • That’s why the speaker has left the world of the young and come to Byzantium, a symbol of timeless spiritual and artistic beauty.

Stanza 3:

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.

Summary:

  • The speaker now addresses the ancient sages of Byzantium, imagined as figures in a golden mosaic, surrounded by divine fire.
  • He asks them to emerge from the fire and become his teachers (“singing-masters of my soul”).
  • The speaker wants them to remove ("consume") his human heart, which is full of desire and attached to his decaying body (“a dying animal”).
  • He longs to be freed from physical life and taken into the eternal world of art and spirit—“the artifice of eternity.”

Stanza 4:

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.

Summary:

  • The speaker imagines that once he leaves the natural world (i.e., physical life), he won’t return in a human or natural form.
  • Instead, he wishes to take the form of a beautiful, eternal artwork—like a golden bird made by a Greek craftsman.
  • Such a bird might sit on a golden tree and sing to royalty in Byzantium.
  • This golden bird would sing timeless songs of history, present life, and the future—“of what is past, or passing, or to come.”

Theme and Message:

  • "Sailing to Byzantium" is about the contrast between youth and age, body and soul, sensuality and spirituality, nature and art, and the temporal and the eternal.
  • Yeats expresses a desire to escape the decay of the body and the distractions of the physical world.
  • He wants to transcend time and achieve immortality through art, wisdom, and spirit—represented by the holy and eternal city of Byzantium.


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