pain of old age He says I have sailed the seas and come To the holy city of Byzantium The Sailing Journey The sailing means the poet s journey from the real world to the world of art It also means his wish to leave the body and enter the soul It is a symbol of change and freedom The Golden Bird The bird is made of gold and sings forever It stands for immortal art The poet wants to become this bird He says Set upon a golden bough to sing Symbols in Easter This poem is about the Irish revolution and the people who died for Ireland This poem is also enriched with powerful symbols Terrible Beauty This is the main symbol of the poem It means the beauty of sacrifice but also the pain of death The poet says A terrible beauty is born Green Green is the color of Ireland It stands for Irish pride and freedom It also reminds us of the blood and struggle of the Irish people Stone The stone is a symbol of strong will and an unchanging heart It shows the bravery of the Irish heroes Symbols in The Lake Isle of Innisfree This poem is about peace nature and simple life Yeats uses beautiful symbols to show his dream of a quiet life Lake Isle of Innisfree It is a real island but it also means peace freedom and escape The poet wants to leave the busy world and live there Bee-loud Glade This means a quiet place filled with soft nature sounds Bees stand for simple natural life Midnight and Noon These are not just times They show peaceful moments in life The poet wants peace day and night He says And live alone in the bee-loud glade Symbols in The Second Coming This poem shows a dark future and loss of order The poet shows that society is in chaos and out of control The Gyre It is a spiral shape It means the circle of history Yeats believed history moves in spirals not straight lines The Rough Beast This beast is wild and dangerous It stands for the evil forces of the future It is scary and unknown It may bring destruction or a new era Bethlehem This is where Jesus was born But here it shows that something evil is going to be born It shows the end of the old world and the start of a dark age The Falcon and the Falconer The falcon is a bird The falconer is the master The bird flies too far and cannot hear the master It means people are out of control Yeats writes The falcon cannot hear the falconer W B Yeats used symbols to make his poems rich and deep His symbols are taken from nature religion history and imagination These symbols help us understand his ideas about life death art and the future Symbols made Yeats a great poet