Top 100 or so Poems -- "Sailing to Byzantium" by William Butler Yeats

This classic poem by Yeats leads us in a search for the concentrated unity of life in the ideal city. Byzantium in the 6th century was what Yeats was dreaming of when he wrote it. Byzantium became Constantinople, then finally Istanbul...

"Sailing to Byzantium" is one of the top 15 most anthologized poems of all time.

Enjoy his dream...

Sailing to Byzantium

By William Butler Yeats

I

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.

II

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.

III

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.

IV

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.

Top 100 or so Poems -- "The Second Coming" by William Butler Yeats

William Butler Yeats was the prominent Irish poet during the early 20th Century. Famous for his poems and plays, he was equally famous for his odd lifestyle centered around unrequited love, the remarkably usual (expected) passion of the poetic damned, the magical and the occult, imagery, innuendo, metaphors and rather intense meanings "behind the lines" of many of his poetic works.

In addition to a number of Modern Classics, one of which is featured here, Yeats played a role in the defining moments of Modernism during the early part of the 20th century through his collaborative work and employment of a certain Ezra Pound as his secretary back then. Pound, being a master manipulator, was an artistic and creative influence on Yeats at this time, with remarkable results.

This classic by Yeats was written around the time of Pound. Filled with imagery and hidden meaning, this was the stuff of Yeats fans around the world. Sort of a like a turn of the century John Lennon (Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds), his fans were prone to hours of analyzation.

No matter; it's a good poem, probably a GREAT poem, and there are plenty of essays about it - all interesting.

Enjoy.

The Second Coming

By William Butler Yeats

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

POEM OF THE DAY -- "The Second Coming" by William Butler Yeats

W.B. Yeats is considered one of the most influential Modernist poets of all time, and is a fantastic way to finish our "British Poets" POD series this week.

"The Second Coming" is widely considered to be one of the most influential Modernist poems of all time, and is presented here for your enjoyment.

The Second Coming

by William Butler Yeats


Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

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