The Second Coming by W. B. Yeats

Poll - Total Votes: 11

Yes

You can only vote on one answer.

Do you think that the Second Coming is at hand?

"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: 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 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?"

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Ozymandiaz

No because it is all a bronze age fairytale but if there is I hope he is a real fucker like in the poem

val70 · 51-55

@Ozymandiaz The Irish (not bronze age) backdrop to 'The Second Coming' can be traced back to 1916 when Yeats described himself as deeply moved by the Rising, but also “very despondent about the future.” As things developed, he saw Ireland drifting into a dangerous condition with “wild bloods” in the ascendant. By using lines from “The Second Coming” as the introduction to his book, Chinua Achebe pointed out (in 1958) parallels between a time of chaos in European history and the upheaval caused by the European colonization of Africa. And so it goes on. There's no-one in the poem except us. We're doing bad things to ourselves and mainly because there's yet no centre to our doings.

Ozymandiaz

@val70 The poem Easter, 1916 by Yeats would be closer to what you are stating. I guess I just responding in response to your question.

val70 · 51-55

@Ozymandiaz Explaining both poems I like to represent it as peeling the layers of an onion. With the Easter Rising poem he recounted the loss of sense of heroism but holding on to Irish nationalism nevertheless. It's only with The Second Coming he pointed to the overall loss of a centre that held everything together before

LeopoldBloom · M

That was written 100 years ago. It applies to every historical period. The point is that the second coming is always at hand but never arrives.

val70 · 51-55

@LeopoldBloom Rightly so. Studied literature or theology too then? Although the centre from the poem was lost in the First World War alright.

InHeaven · F

NoGamesTolerated · F

I think it’s closer than most can possibly perceive and wayyy too many won’t be ready for it.

ArcAngel · 61-69, M

We should always be watching for Jesus and the Angels
no matter what consciousness time zone we are in.
Scott

LordShadowfire · 46-50, M

No, and what is it with Christians and rooting for the world to end?

val70 · 51-55

@LordShadowfire Just fondness for a good yarn

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