{
 "id": "w-b-yeats/sailing-to-byzantium",
 "title": "Sailing to Byzantium",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "W. B. Yeats",
 "poet_slug": "w-b-yeats",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "The Tower",
 "book_slug": "the-tower",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": null,
 "container": "The Tower",
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1928,
  "venue": "The Tower (1928)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
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  ]
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  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
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  "last_checked": "2026-08-21"
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 "stats": {
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   "ordinal": "I",
   "title": null,
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   "ordinal": "II",
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   "title": null,
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "That is no country for old men. The young",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In one another’s arms, birds in the trees,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "—Those dying generations⁠—at their song,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Fish flesh or fowl, commend all summer long",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Whatever is begotten born and dies.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Caught in that sensual music all neglect",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Monuments of unaging intellect.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "An aged man is but a paltry thing,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A tattered coat upon a stick, unless",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For every tatter in its mortal dress,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor is there singing school but studying",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Monuments of its own magnificence;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And therefore I have sailed the seas and come",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To the holy city of Byzantium.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "O sages standing in God’s holy fire",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As in the gold mosaic of a wall,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And be the singing masters of my soul.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Consume my heart away; sick with desire",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And fastened to a dying animal",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It knows not what it is; and gather me",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Into the artifice of eternity.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Once out of nature I shall never take",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "My bodily form from any natural thing,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of hammered gold and gold enamelling",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To keep a drowsy emperor awake;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or set upon a golden bough to sing",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To lords and ladies of Byzantium",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of what is past, or passing, or to come.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}