Jump to content

The Second Coming (poem): Difference between revisions

The Second Coming (poem) (view source)

Revision as of 20:35, 10 June 2020

958 bytes removed ,  4 years ago
Moved poem into "Source" subpage
VisualWikitext
(tropelist, work needs tropes, added categories)
(Moved poem into "Source" subpage)
Line 1:
{{work|wppage=The Second Coming (poem)}}
{{quote|Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
 
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the [[Second Coming]] is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
|''[[William Butler Yeats]]''}}
 
[[William Butler Yeats]]' most famous poem. It is ''not'' about [[The End of the World as We Know It|the Apocalypse]] and the [[Self-Demonstrating Article|second coming of Christ]] -- rather, it's a window into Yeats's own cosmology and worldview, predicting the fall of the Christian world order and the rising of a new empire. It was written just after [[World War I]], the failed Irish Rising (in which Yeats lost several close friends), and the Russian Revolution (which [[Shell-Shocked Veteran|probably explains a lot]]).
Retrieved from "https://allthetropes.org/wiki/Special:MobileDiff/1789011"
Cookies help us deliver our services. By using our services, you agree to our use of cookies.
More information