William Butler Yeats [jeɪts] (* 13. Juni 1865 in Sandymount bei Dublin; † 28. Januar 1939 in Menton bei Nizza, begraben in Drumcliff, Co. Sligo) war ein irischer Dichter. Er gilt als einer der bedeutendsten englischsprachigen Schriftsteller des 20. Jahrhunderts. 1923 erhielt er als erster Ire den Literaturnobelpreis. Er war der Bruder des Künstlers und Autors Jack Butler Yeats und der Vater des Politikers Michael Yeats. wiki

Gedichte, unter anderem "Meerfahrt nach Byzanz" auch übersetzt als "Segeln nach Byzantium"

Sailing to Byzantium

That is no country for old men. The young
In one another's arms, birds in the trees
- Those dying generations - at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unaging intellect.

An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of 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.

Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enameling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.

Gute Reise, Buch!