"Sailing to Byzantium" is a poem by William Butler Yeats, written in 1927. It reflects the poet’s thoughts on aging, the search for immortality, and the yearning for transcendence. The speaker, an elderly man, contrasts the impermanence of his own body with the eternal beauty of art and the spiritual realm. He wishes to leave the physical world behind and journey to Byzantium (modern-day Istanbul), which represents a place of timelessness, wisdom, and artistic achievement. In Byzantium, the speaker seeks an escape from the decay of his mortal form, aspiring to become an eternal, immortal spirit like the art and culture of the city.

The poem also explores themes of rebirth, with the speaker envisioning a transformation that transcends age and the body’s limitations. Yeats uses the journey to Byzantium as a metaphor for the soul's quest for eternity and the quest for the divine, highlighting the tension between the physical world and the intellectual/spiritual world.