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?
W.B. Yeats
23 comments:
How would you describe the force that is bringing about the second coming?
The force is negative and chaotic. The ideas which are used to describe it are anarchy, the drowning of innocence, lack of conviction, and passionate intensity. These things seem dark and foreboding.
Very gradual. A falcon begins its spiral (or gyre, shall we say) close to the hand of its falconer, but the radius slowly widens until the center is lost and all bonds of camaraderie are broken (which is all theoretical of course; apparently most falcons are, or were, very well-behaved little birds). Stray but a little from the conventional and one thing leads to another until anarchy is unleashed.
The force that is bringing about the second coming seems to be pure malevolance. It's making the bad people passionate, and causing the good ones to "lack conviction." In other words, the second force is restoring evil to the world.
The second coming is being brought on simply by the cease of all goodness in the world. As moral and ethical values begin to disappear and people start disregarding authority, even the most virtuous people can become corrupt. Thus, for these reasons, the second coming is able to take form.
The force propelling the second coming seems to be ancient and prophetic, like a deep sense of omnicient evil that has accumulated over a large span of time. The creature described was in deep sleep for thousands of years before it finally awakened, engendering all the evil that has been unleashed on Earth. There is confusion from no organization from government, violence and bloodshed, loss of innocence, and the overall deterioration of morals and good.
The Second Coming occurs on the brink of the twentieth century, spewing forth as a great force of disaster, bringing out all the bad qualities of people and bringing about destruction. The force is powerful, and sinister, and is a sign that all organization must cease in order for the new century to start fresh. (As a side-note, does this poem have something to do with the book that we're going to be reading? Because the words "things far apart" are in the poem, which is (coincidently?) the title of the book.)
The force that is bringing about the second coming is crazy and upseting. Everything is falling apart and the worst people are becoming the passionate ones.
The force of the Second Coming is like a tidal wave, destroying everything in its path. It's full of disorder and therefore creates disorder. We see this chaos through the images that Yeats writes, for example the blood everywhere.
Well, this poem kind of reminds me of the twilight zone just because it describes the falcon as "turning and turning", which is kind of mesmerizing just thinking about it. My thought is the poem is really beautiful, it gives me the image of a mammoth blanket, black as night, full of horrors, swallowing up the world at a steady pace. The poem definitely has momentum, it builds up murderous passion all the way until the end. The force behind the confusion and chaos is pure evil, like the devil, since it makes a few biblical references. I think it's interesting how he mentions Bethlehem at the end, something that gives the reader a sense of innocence and happiness, yet it gives such an awful premonition.
I agree with most of the previous comments that the force seems dark, evil, and gradual. It almost seems like a complete reversal from everything that is good. I wonder if the creature that he describes towards the end of the poem has some kind of biblical reference? (or a reference to something else?) But I really liked the poem and thought it had great imagery.
Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!!
The Second Coming is a complete turning upside down, or a bouleversement. Good people are turning bad and bad ones are "full of passionate intensity." Everything is chaotic, from the government to the tidal waves, and most importantly people's morals.
I pictured this "force" as growing and growing, and then suddenly erupting. I would describe it as tension building over centuries (twenty centuries?) with little things, but the chaos is only realized when it is truly anarchy. Maybe this force has been there all along, but seems insignificant all up until it finally bursts. I picture the force as a huge wave that sweeps over the world; it is unstoppable.
I agree with all of the other comments. The force that is bringing the Second Coming is negative and chaotic. All goodness in the world seems to have come to an end.
The force is dramatic, chaotic, and emotional.
The force that is bringing forth the second coming is unstoppable and beyond repair. The corruption of men has reached to a point where there is not a single tinge of goodness in their hearts. Like others have said, the decay of the world, which led to the second coming, was formed gradually until the situation spun out of people's hands and anarchy is fully released upon the world.
the second coming is a rush of dark and ominous contortions that have a reversing effect on the benevolent, forcing them to either recede as the best begin to "lack all conviction" or to become one with the worst who are full of "passionate intensity"
The force is caused by humankind and occurs due to the need for a positive influence.
I don't think I answered this one... If I did, I probably didn't say more than a few words.
The force is angry and fierce, and not very controlled (the falcon cannot hear the falconer). It seems like war, or like the end of TFA (what a coincidence) when everyone was divided and angry. It reminds me of smokers.. the peace that they find in self destruction, and it reminds me of school- everyone racing to get the highest score.
December 24, 2007 7:59 AM
The force that is bringing about the second coming has continuously been added to as time went on. Little by little, it has become a problem. It's like when something seems like a small problem and is ignored, it becomes greater and greater until it is recognized. Once people finally see that there is a problem, the force has already become inevitable.
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