Synopsis: Sailing to Byzantium is Yeats's ode on the hardships of old age compared to the joy of youth which, according to him, is the only pride of an old man , as he shows his heart's desire is deceived by the appearance of his aged body. In the poem Yeats tries to move spiritually to Byzantium where he seeks immortality by becoming an artificial piece. Yeats ends the poem by saying that he wishes to become an artificial piece so that he will never be reincarnated in old age with the memories of his youth. Thus summarizing his ideology that the splendors of youth are not worth the agony of old age. Theme: The overall theme of the poem is the pain of not being able to do what your heart desires. Other themes concern the pain of old age versus the joy of youth. The poem also considers the ideology of artificial superiority over natural life. Form: includes four stanzas in octave rhyme, each composed of eight lines of ten syllables. He uses a trip to Constantinople (Byzantium) as a metaphor for a spiritual journey. The narrator is in the first person in the story, however it is ambiguous who the narrator is as his background is never discussed. However, considering the context of the poem, Yeats is probably talking about himself. Context: Sailing to Byzantium” is one of Yeats's most inspired works and one of the greatest poems of the twentieth century. Written in 1926 and included in Yeats's greatest singles collection, The TowerMotifs:Music- "Those dying generations, to their song, Caught in that sensual music, all overlook." Music in this context hypnotizes youth, it is sweet and joyful but it distracts you from the reality of life and its problems which Yeats criticizes to demonstrate that not even youth is worth old age. “The soul claps its hands… in the center of the paper… eats” constructs a vague metaphor for the changes that have occurred throughout the poem, comparing the “dying generations” of birds in the first lines to the eternal golden sculpture of a bird in this line. Sensual music is symbolic of youth and human experience as different art forms. Allusions The Byzantine Empire was the geographic and cultural center of the European and Middle Eastern world for more than a thousand years. For much of that time, and throughout several cycles of decline and recovery, Byzantium served as an economic, political, and cultural superpower. Literary Features Repetition of Gold - Using gold to metaphorically describe the sages allows our speaker to allude to the precious nature of the essays, also. Assonance of "fire" and "vortex". Assonance allows the word to consume the rest of the verse showing its power