Frost and Yeats

The poems "Sailing to Byzantium" by William Butler Yates and "Birches" by Robert Frost both tell narratives about one generation and how the death of the old is what allows the present generation to thrive. Whereas Yates uses a narrator describing the evolving mental state of a man who knows that he is not long for this earth, Frost uses the degradation of the forests over time to illustrate the same point. One line of Yates' poem acts as a motto for both: "Whatever is begotten, born, and dies" (line 6). They are epitaphs to a dying generation, which includes the narrators of the poems themselves.

Yeats' poem "Sailing to Byzantium" is a sad tribute to the older generation who can no longer survive in the modern world. "That is no country for old men" (line 1). The narrator, closely approaching death remarks upon the fragile nature...
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