Standing in God's Holy Fire

Sailing to Byzantium

....

O sages standing in God's holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.

....

(W.B. Yeats, "Sailing to Byzantium," The Tower, 1928)

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