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 Spritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in the 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 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, 1920.
I often see myself flipping to this poem again and again each time I revisit my favourite collection of Yeats. This poem first piqued my interest as I was studying Revelations at bible class. I was just wondering why I tend to flip to this poem again when I know I would memorise the entire poem.
Most of my friends who are non-believers want to have a better understanding of the spiritus mundi and how Yeats whose belief in occult led him to his revelation that the Western Civilization was nearing the terminal point.
I am inadequate and had been spouting nonsense to them. I feel very guilty. I tend to ignore responding to the call of converting the best friends who are really very dear to me. They have many questions that I cannot answer and hence are less receptive to the gospel. Now, call me an evangelist?
