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References to Singing

References to singing appear in each of the poem’s four stanzas. In the poem’s first half, which focus on the frustrations that have led the speaker to embark on his journey to Byzantium, singing appears in degraded contexts. For instance, in stanza 1, the speaker describes a romantic scene where birds sing in the trees, their music serving as mere accompaniment to the embrace of young lovers. In stanza 2, by contrast, the speaker describes how the only reprieve for the physical agony of aging is for the “soul [to] clap its hands and sing, and louder sing / For every tatter in its mortal dress” (lines 11–12). The salvational power of song indicated here becomes more important in the second half of the poem, where the speaker envisions his own spiritual transformation. In stanza 3, he prays to Christian sages, asking for them to serve as “the singing-masters of my soul” (line 20). The song implied here is the Divine Liturgy, which in both the Catholic and Orthodox traditions enacts the transubstantiation of the Body and Blood of Christ into bread and wine. Finally, in stanza 4, the speaker imagines himself being transformed into a mechanical bird that will sing eternally for the royalty of Byzantium.

Birds

“Sailing to Byzantium” both begins and ends with references to birds and birdsong. In stanza 1, the speaker mentions singing birds as a part of his reflection on his feelings of alienation from his homeland (lines 1–3):

That is no country for old men. The young
In one another's arms, birds in the trees,
—Those dying generations—at their song

As a man of advancing age, the speaker is no longer invested in the amorous pursuits of the youth, who he imagines here wrapped in each other’s arms while birds sing in the trees above them. His disdain for the romanticism of this scenario is evident, and it seems to apply as much to the young lovers as to the birds. Despite the youthful vitality of the lovers and the lively singing of the birds, the speaker is quick to refer to them both as “those dying generations.” This is a cruel phrase that seems to express the speaker’s jealous contempt that youths and birds alike lack full awareness of their mortality. It’s curious, then, that when the speaker returns to the figure of the bird in stanza 4, he transforms it into a symbol of immortality. Specifically, the speaker imagines being transformed into a mechanical bird “of hammered gold and gold enamelling” (line 28). By becoming an artificial bird rendered from a metal whose color is symbolically associated with holiness and spiritual truth, the speaker can transcend into “the artifice of eternity” (line 24).

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