The
Second
Coming
William
Yeats
Butler
The Second Coming
By William Butler 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
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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 ‘wi
10
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,
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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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Vocabulary:
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Line 1 – gyre - a circular or spiral motion or form – the spiral becomes wider and looser as it
moves outwards.
Line 2 – falcon - a bird of prey which typically catches prey by diving on it from above.
Line 2 – falconer - a person who keeps, trains, or hunts with falcons
Line 4 – anarchy - political and social disorder due to the absence of governmental control.
Line 7 – conviction - holding strong and firm beliefs.
Line 9 – revelation - something that is revealed by God to humans.
Line 12 – Spiritus Mundi - a Latin term that literally means, ‘world spirit’, is ‘a universal memory.
Refers to Yeats' belief that each human mind is linked to a single vast intelligence, and that this
intelligence causes certain universal symbols to appear in individual minds.
Line 17 – reel - lose one's balance and stagger or lurch violently.
Line 17 – indignant - feeling or showing anger or annoyance at what is perceived as unfair
treatment.
Line 20 – vexed - annoyed, frustrated, or worried.
Line 22 – slouches - stand, move, or sit in a lazy, drooping way.
UNDERSTANDING THE POEM:
About gyre’
the poet:
The ‘widening
(line 1) refers to the falcon flying in ever increasing circles above the head of the falconer, and so the
‘gyre’ of the circle of its flight is widening. • The falcon is trained to be obedient to the falconer, responding to his every
William Butler Yeats was born in 1865 in County Dublin, Ireland. He grew up in the early years of the
call. Ho
Protestant-Catholic struggle in Ireland and it would seem that he — being a marginalised Protestant
under a Catholic domination — felt a crisis of identity, a crisis that would affect much of his poetry. He
spent much time defending Irish nationalism and her cultural identity. The poet had a deep interest in
spiritualism, mysticism, astrology and the occult — something that appears to dominate his poem The
Second Coming. He was also particularly influenced by the poetry of William Blake. Yeats wrote The
Second Coming in 1919. It was first published in 1920. The poem portrays much of the shock caused by
what was then termed "the Great War" (World War 1), a war of excessive destruction and dramatic loss
of life — something quite unprecedented up till then. Yeats was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature
in 1923. He died in France in 1939 and was buried in that country.
About this poem:
The poem starts with an image of a falcon whirling higher and higher into the sky, until it can no longer
hear the falconer (its trainer/handler). The falconer has lost control of the bird. The speaker compares
this image to the state of the world where ‘anarchy’, chaos and a lack of control now rules. The speaker
says that surely this is the time for divine intervention/a saviour to save humanity – the Second Coming
of Jesus as foretold in the Bible. However, in his vision a huge beast emerges, born out of the collective
consciousness of the people, staggering towards Bethlehem, where Jesus was born.
The poem is divided into two stanzas: the first eight lines describe the chaotic state of the world; the
second fourteen lines provides a vision of some new order or even more terrible chaos that will emerge
in the world. The speaker leaves the reader to speculate on the origins and what the appearance of this
beast could mean.
Discussion:
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The ‘widening gyre’ (line 1) refers to the falcon flying in ever increasing circles above the head of
the falconer, and so the ‘gyre’ of the circle of its flight is widening.
The falcon is trained to be obedient to the falconer, responding to his every call. However, the
falcon is no longer obedient, no longer listens to the commands of the falconer. ‘cannot hear’
implies that something has seriously gone wrong. In the image the people are compared to the
falcon, and they no longer heed their leaders.
‘the centre cannot hold’ It means chaos is descending upon the world; the forces that should
bring order are failing to do so.
‘Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world’ – anarchy is a state of total lawlessness – people,
institutions do whatever they please without any consideration for others. ‘loosed’ implies that
there are forces that are deliberately causing the anarchy.
‘blood-dimmed tide’ refers to the widespread bloodshed caused by war. ‘the ceremony of
innocence is drowned’ – people have lost their innocence.
Good people have lost their ‘conviction’ of what is right, while the worst people are ‘full of
passionate intensity’ – this remind us of fanatics who see no evil in anything they do for their
cause. An example of antithesis - two terms, phrases or ideas that contrast in a balanced
manner or have opposite meanings.
‘The Second Coming’ (lines 10-11) – normally the Second Coming would refer to the arrival of a
saviour and a renewal of faith, however, the repletion in line 11 followed by the exclamation
mark, signals the opposite – the approach of something merciless, slow and huge.
‘troubles my sight’ – implies it is not something positive. From the desert a creature like the
Great Sphinx in Egypt moves slowly toward Bethlehem – no expression in its eyes except
pitilessness. The birds are ‘indignant’ at being disturbed.
After a ‘stony sleep’ of twenty centuries, a terrible creature has awakened by the nightmares
caused by the upheavals that have taken place in the world.
‘The darkness drops again’ – suggests ignorance and the approach of evil. Alliteration in ‘stony
sleep’ emphasizes how great the anarchy is that has awakened this ‘rough beast’.
The cradle symbolizes a baby or the start of new life – in this case something evil.