Imminent Apocalypse
...ith four lines focusing on confusion. Turning forever on a spiral describes a sort of dizziness, and Falcon not hearing his falconer describes times of chaos… a kind of chaos which causes misdirection. He states that things are falling apart and anarchy is loosed upon the world. Anarchy can be defined as a lack of government or a chaotic situation. During the time this poem was written, World War I had shown its face, and Ireland was striving for a self-organized government. Yeats is describing this time in the first four lines and continues to do so until the second stanza. The following and final lines of the first stanza state… 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. Here, Yeats is describing the brutal results of the war. The blood-dimmed tide is illustrating the blood, shed for Ireland, and the ceremony of innocence, or the attempt for freedom, is drowned in the blood-dimmed tide. The next two lines contradict themselves by saying the best lack firm belief, and the worst are full of passion. Keep in mind that at the time, Britain has control over Ireland. I believe Yeats is saying that Britain is best at what they do, but they have no passionate beliefs, and Ireland is the worst, but they are full of ambition and passion. The first stanza of this poem details the modern world, and then moves into the second stanza detailing the ancient world. This section of the poem describes the ancient world and the coming revelation. It uses dark and intense language with explanatory statements and words such as “darkness” and “nightmare.” The second half of “The Second Coming” states… 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: 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 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? This stanza starts by stating that a revelation, a second coming, is at hand. I believe “revelation” in this case is the showing of divine will due to the Latin phrase “Spiritus Mundi” meaning Spirit of the World. When Yeats states that “somewhere in the sands of t...