"The Second Coming"
By
William Butler Yeats
Transcription, correction, editorial commentary, and markup by Students and Staff of the University of Virginia
MICHAEL ROBARTES AND THE
DANCER, BY WILLIAM BUTLER
YEATS.
THE CUALA PRESS
CHURCHTOWN
DUDNRUM JUNE 1924 19 THE SECOND COMING. 1Turning and turning in the widening gyre 1The falcon cannot hear the falconer; 2Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; 3Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, 4The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere 5The ceremony of innocence is drowned; 6The best lack all conviction, while the worst 7Are full of passionate intensity. 8Surely some revelation is at hand; 9Surely the Second Coming is at hand. 10The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out 11When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi 12Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand 13A shape with lion body and the head of a man, 14A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun, 15Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it 16Wind shadows the indignant desert birds. 20 17The darkness drops again but now I know 18That twenty centuries of stony sleep 19Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle, 20And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, 21Slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?
DANCER, BY WILLIAM BUTLER
YEATS.
THE CUALA PRESS
CHURCHTOWN
DUDNRUM JUNE 1924 19 THE SECOND COMING. 1Turning and turning in the widening gyre 1The falcon cannot hear the falconer; 2Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; 3Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, 4The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere 5The ceremony of innocence is drowned; 6The best lack all conviction, while the worst 7Are full of passionate intensity. 8Surely some revelation is at hand; 9Surely the Second Coming is at hand. 10The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out 11When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi 12Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand 13A shape with lion body and the head of a man, 14A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun, 15Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it 16Wind shadows the indignant desert birds. 20 17The darkness drops again but now I know 18That twenty centuries of stony sleep 19Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle, 20And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, 21Slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?