Sailing To Byzantium By William Butler Yeats: On Waiting For The Call Of Death
Once we get to a certain age, there are inevitable thoughts and questions that we just ponder on. Things like growing older, feeling out of touch with the new generation surpassing you, and waiting for the weary call of death. These feelings are illustrated in Yeats’ poem, “Sailing to Byzantium”, one of the greatest poems of the 20th century. The speaker, an elderly man, explores the idea of mortality and how he doesn't feel as though he belongs in his country filled with only youths. However, the speaker doesn’t just accept his fate. The poem discusses his deepening desire to leave this world of death and to escape into a world of immortal beauty. The main purpose of the elderly man’s imaginary journey is to escape to a distant, imaginary land where he can achieve mystical union with beautiful, eternal works of art. Afterall, art does last forever.
The main theme of the poem is the character’s desire to advance and triumph death. Yeats does this by beautifully depicting the significance of growing old and the separation between the old and young. In the first stanza, the speaker states that the youths in his land are caught up in “sensual music,” (Yeats. 7) the inhabitants of this country do not consider intellectual or spiritual concerns. Rather, they are caught up in life itself and the present, not considering what truly is eternal. He further reminds us that everything comes to an end; whatever is “begotten [and] born” (Yeats. 6) ultimately dies. Readers can truly sense the feeling of neglect which further delves into how the elderly in general are abandoned and ignored by society. The somber and negative tone progresses throughout the poem as the speaker describes old men, such as himself, who are worthless; just “a tattered coat upon a stick” (Yeats. 10). This referring to a scarecrow, an inanimate object utterly alone and forgotten in a field.
The speaker than acknowledges his desire to leave the natural world in an imaginary escape to Byzantium, where he wishes his aging body can become part of the “artifice of eternity” (Yeats. 24). But as the poem continues, the symbol of art is quite evident. He conveys the message that the human body is mortal therefore decays and perishes whilst art or beautifully crafted artifacts are timeless; unlike that of the natural world that ages and dies. Therefore, when the speaker talks about the desire of becoming a “golden bough” (Yeats. 30), he is really yearning to leave his body behind and enter a more spiritual, and everlasting state. This holds great significance due to, “the bird-song complex, the global exhibit, bridges the two realms, the mortal, natural world and the eternal world of art” (Csirmaz). He ultimately hopes not to be just a “natural thing” (Yeats. 26), but instead craves to be a mechanical bird “of hammered gold and gold enameling,” (Yeats. 28) for the mechanical bird will not age and die. Thus, bringing all these worlds together.
