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 MundiTroubles 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 sleepWere vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle, And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
MS72 over 8 years ago
Here we go round the prickly pearPrickly pear prickly pearHere we go round the prickly pearAt five o’clock in the morning.
Between the ideaAnd the realityBetween the motionAnd the actFalls the Shadow
For Thine is the KingdomBetween the conceptionAnd the creationBetween the emotionAnd the responseFalls the Shadow
Life is very longBetween the desireAnd the spasmBetween the potencyAnd the existenceBetween the essenceAnd the descentFalls the Shadow
For Thine is the KingdomFor Thine isLife isFor Thine is the
This is the way the world ends…
Thomas R. Williams over 8 years ago
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 MundiTroubles 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 sleepWere 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. YeatsSteven Wright over 8 years ago
Wonderful commentary, thank you both @MS72, @NoMo’oltomcats for the outstanding contribution to today’s delightful comments.
Jim Kerner over 8 years ago
Sad, but true.