William Butler Yeats: Poetry of Term Paper

From there, the speaker addresses the sages and asks that they teach him to sing. In other words, he is tired of the life that he has on this earth, and he wants to give up his earthly form and move on to what comes next. He feels that he is still fastened to something (his body) that is dying, and he wants to set free his soul and move into what eternity has to offer to him, where there is no 'old' and no one that does not know how to 'sing.' The speaker will then take his form in whatever he likes, such as a golden bird, and will not be concerned with these earthly issues anymore. The speaker wants to pass on, out of this world, and move away from being old and unnoticed as he has been for some time. Life, he apparently feels, is for the young, and since he does not have the abilities of youth, he wants to 'get them back' by moving into what is….....