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In
one another's arms, birds in the trees
—
Those dying generations — at their song,
The
salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
5 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.
An
aged man is but a paltry thing,
10 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;
15 And
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,
20 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.
25 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;
30 Or set
upon a golden bough to sing
To
lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of
what is past, or passing, or to come.
Reading: Harold Bloom, Sailing to Byzantium
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