{"id":906,"date":"2011-03-21T01:58:15","date_gmt":"2011-03-21T01:58:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/?p=906"},"modified":"2023-12-22T01:08:14","modified_gmt":"2023-12-22T01:08:14","slug":"the-second-coming-by-w-b-yeats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/the-second-coming-by-w-b-yeats\/","title":{"rendered":"The Second Coming by W. B. Yeats"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"The<\/h1>\n

The Second Coming<\/h1>\n

by W. B. Yeats<\/p>\n

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
\nThe falcon cannot hear the falconer;
\nThings fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
\nMere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
\nThe blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
\nThe ceremony of innocence is drowned;
\nThe best lack all conviction, while the worst
\nAre full of passionate intensity.<\/p>\n

Surely some revelation is at hand;
\nSurely the Second Coming is at hand.
\nThe Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
\nWhen a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
\nTroubles my sight; somewhere in sands of the desert
\nA shape with lion body and the head of a man,
\nA gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
\nIs moving its slow thighs, while all about it
\nReel shadows of indignant desert birds.
\nThe darkness drops again; but now I know
\nThat twenty centuries of stony sleep
\nWere vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
\nAnd what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
\nSlouches towards Bethlehem to be born?<\/p>\n

###<\/p>\n

William Butler Yeats (1865-1939) was one of the foremost poets of 20th century literature. An Irish poet and playwright, Yeats helped drive the Irish Literary Revival and co-founded the Abbey Theatre. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1923 for what the Nobel Committee described as \u201cinspired poetry, which in a highly artistic form gives expression to the spirit of a whole nation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yeats was born in Dublin and spent his childhood between London and County Sligo in Ireland. The Irish landscape and folklore of his youth informed much of his poetic imagery and nationalistic sentiments later in life. Though he trained as a painter initially, Yeats turned fully towards poetry in his twenties while becoming involved in occult circles in London. He published several poetry collections in the 1890s as well as plays rooted in Irish mythology.<\/p>\n

Alongside Lady Gregory, Yeats was a driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival aimed at reviving native Irish language and culture through art. As a playwright, he co-founded the Abbey Theatre with Gregory and others as a home for Irish drama. Over his long and prolific career, Yeats cemented his legacy as one of Ireland\u2019s most revered writers, noted for his imaginative lyricism and powerful vision infused with Irish politics and mythology. His poems of unrequited love, Irish rebellion and the arcane remain widely influential in modern literature.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Second Coming by W. B. Yeats 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…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10269,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[84,110],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-906","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-1900s","category-yeats"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/906","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=906"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/906\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}