Use of Symbols in Sailing to Byzantium

There are two ways in which a poet can express himself,firstly,direct through images which are suggestive and evocative,and secondly,through symbols.symbolism is necessary for a poet who wants to say more than what meets the eye,wants to suggest something beyond the expressed meaning.

Yeats,of course,was no exception to this rule.From the first ,there were certain images and symbols to which hghe returned again and again,and into which he constantly pouredthe manifold accumulated tensions of though and emotions.In fact Yeats had been regardedas a great symbolic poet.Inummerable were the symbols that Yeats employed in many cases,the same symbols being for different purposes and in different contexts.Many of his symbols were very obscure and almost unintelligible to the unimitated reader.The reason for the obscurity or incomprehensibility of these symbols was that theywere derived from Yeats's occult studies.In his early yearshe had been a devotedstudent of theosophy and magic and a member of a society of Christian Kabalists.He had also made use of other arbitrary occult symbols of rose,cross,lily,bird,water,tree,moon and sun which