Sailing to Byzantium

The speaker starts off the poem talking in a general sense and as he moves into the second stanza it gets more personal. In the first stanza he is describing the natural world and mortality. In the last line, "sensual music" causes everyone to neglect "unageing intellect." Because the intellect is "unageing," it is immortal and can not be understood by anything that is mortal. The second stanza speaks of being old and declares that the only way to prevent your body from virtually falling apart is for your soul to "sing." To keep your body alive you must keep your soul alive. This stanza also explains the speakers reason for sailing to Byzantium in the first place. Then the speaker is asking for a sage, who is possibly a wise man, to come teach his soul to sing. He states that his heart is fastened to a dying animal, which is his body, and that he wishes it be consumed. He explains he wants to leave his body and be gathered "into the artifice of eternity." It is later shown that he desires to leave his body forever.