By: William Butler Yeats

THE SECOND COMING

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 MundiTroubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert   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   Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.   The darkness drops again; but now I know   That twenty centuries of stony sleepWere vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,   And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,   Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

• Born in Dublin, Ireland (1865)• Returned to Dublin at age 15 & discovered love for Poetry

• Involved in the Celtic Revival• Earlier work was influenced by Irish mythology/folklore

• Irish revolutionary Maude Gonne also influenced his poetry• Interest in occultism & spiritualism

• Explored mysticism & held sessions of automatic writing with his wife

• Wrote plays & helped found Dublin’s Abbey Theatre • Appointed Senator of Irish Free State (1922)• Awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923

• Died at age 73 (1939)

ABOUT YEATS

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 MundiTroubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert   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   Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.   The darkness drops again; but now I know   That twenty centuries of stony sleepWere vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,   And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,   Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

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 MundiTroubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert   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   Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.   The darkness drops again; but now I know   That twenty centuries of stony sleepWere vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,   And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,   Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

A spiral or vortex

Latin for “World Spirit”

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 MundiTroubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert   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   Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.   The darkness drops again; but now I know   That twenty centuries of stony sleepWere vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,   And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,   Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Simile & Personification

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 MundiTroubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert   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   Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.   The darkness drops again; but now I know   That twenty centuries of stony sleepWere vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,   And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,   Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Green = Iambic Pentameter

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 MundiTroubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert   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   Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.   The darkness drops again; but now I know   That twenty centuries of stony sleepWere vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,   And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,   Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Previously,“A waste of desert sand”

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/172062

http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/117

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/william-butler-yeats

http://imgc.allpostersimages.com/images/P-1200-1200-100/37/3730/MSQAF00Z/posters/william-butler-yeats-irish-poet-

1930s.jpg

http://www.potw.org/archive/potw351.html

http://aliscot.com/ensenanza/4033/victorian/yeats_sys.htm

http://www.sparknotes.com/poetry/yeats/section5.rhtml

http://poetry.rapgenius.com/William-butler-yeats-the-second-coming-annotated#note-

1315750

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