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Sailing To Byzantium
Paul Kelly
Popularity ยท Moderate
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That is no country for old men, the young on 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 unaging 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
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
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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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