SOURCE: Monroe, Harriet. “Comment: ‘Sailing To Byzantium.’” Poetry: A Magazine of Verse 37, no. 4 (January 1931): 208-13.

In the following essay, Monroe considers ways in which she has “sailed to Byzantium” through her experiences with the theater and literature.

“And therefore have I sailed the seas, and come To the holy city of Byzantium.” 

Because I am much preoccupied, perhaps rightly, with modern poetry, I must now and then sail the seas back into the past, and find once more the holy city where great poets have built their long-enduring pyramids and towers. That city is full of voices uttering magic phrases, and some of these float into my ears in muffled music of unimaginable beauty.

My own approach to great poetry—oh, long ago!—was through the theatre. Before entering that house of enchantment I was innocent of grandeur. I can remember having been moved, in earliest childhood, by...