The Artifice of Eternity
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. 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. 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. 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.
, Sailing to Byzantium (1928)
Yeats wrote this at sixty-one, his body failing, his heart sick with desire for something beyond decay. The fantasy he articulates is ancient and visceral: to be transformed into a work of art—specifically a golden bird, crafted by master goldsmiths, singing forever. To escape the dying animal and become “the artifice of eternity.”
We have our own versions of this fantasy now. Systems that generate endlessly, tirelessly, without the limitations of flesh. They are, in their way, the golden birds Yeats imagined—singing of “what is past, or passing, or to come” without ever passing themselves. The dream of art without the artist’s mortality has taken new form.
But notice the poem’s strange undertow. The speaker begins surrounded by vibrant life—young lovers, birds at their song, salmon-falls and mackerel-crowded seas. All of it “begotten, born, and dies.” He calls this “sensual music” that neglects monuments of unageing intellect. Yet as he sails toward Byzantium, something feels lost. The golden bird will sing to keep a “drowsy Emperor awake”—is this truly an improvement over the wild songs of mortal birds? The artifice is eternal but also fixed, decorative, serving.
What Yeats couldn’t have known is how literally we would be offered this bargain: work that never tires, output that never depletes, creation without the creator’s inevitable decline. The question the poem leaves with us isn’t whether such transformation is possible—it is—but whether it’s truly what we want. The tattered coat upon a stick still sings, “louder sing for every tatter.” Perhaps there’s a kind of singing that only happens because we are fastened to dying animals. Perhaps that’s not a limitation to escape but the very source of the song.