"The Second Coming" William Butler Yeats Howe Tonya Transcription, correction, editorial commentary, and markup Students and Staff of the University of Virginia National Endowment for the Humanities Literature in Context
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Published by Literature in Context under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 Unported License "Easter, 1916" William Butler Yeats Michael Robartes and the Dancer [Dublin] Churchtown and Dundrum The Cuala Press 1920 Yeats' poem was initially printed in The Dial, and then subsequently published in Michael Robartes and the Dancer (Cuala Press, 1920). Cuala Press was an important private Arts and Crafts press in Ireland, set up by Yeats' sisters, Elizabeth and Susan, and associated with the Irish Literary Revival of the early 20th century. This digital edition uses the first printing in Michael Robartes and the Dancer, available on Google Books (https://www.google.com/books/edition/Michael_Robartes_and_the_Dancer/dWs6AQAAMAAJ). For more information about the Cuala Press, see The Library of Trinity College, Dublin. pp 19-20 English print single poem

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 Numbered divs used. Library of Congress Name Authority File Library of Congress Classification Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names Open Researcher and Contributor ID transcribed for Literature in Context edition MICHAEL ROBARTES AND THEDANCER, BY WILLIAM BUTLERYEATS. THE CUALA PRESS CHURCHTOWNDUDNRUM JUNE 1924
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 Mundi Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand 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 Wind shadows 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 toward Bethlehem to be born?