William Butler Yeats' Visions of Byzantium

"At midnight on the Emperor's pavement flit
Flames that no faggot feeds, nor steel has lit,
Nor storm disturbs, flames begotten of flame,
Where blood-begotten spirits come...
Astraddle on the dolphins' mire and blood,
Spirit after spirit! ...
Those images that yet
Fresh images beget,
That dolphin-torn, that gong-tormented sea....

"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
http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/60.html

http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/21.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sailing_to_Byzantium

http://www.ainurin.net/miracle_bird_or_golden_handiwork.htm