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 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?
William Butler Yeats
Beautiful, Mimi. This was needed today, and you've pulled us through. You truly are omnipotent (never mind what MadPriest says about your potency).
ReplyDeleteJN1034, thanks. You lifted my spirits a little. Nothing much wrong, but the state of the church and the world. No major personal problems at the moment. Just a sadness.
ReplyDeleteAh, the malaise must be universal and imposing for us all today. Feeling quite the same here. As we all know, we'll get through it. Pissin' and whinin' are my natural moody Greek-DNA states; optimism and compassion are my pharmaceutically-induced sides. Drug store's closed until Monday morning. Take cover. :)
ReplyDeleteIt is a good poem for the time. I recoiled at "the worst are full of passionate intensity." Probably because it's so true.
ReplyDeleteAmelia, I recoiled at those very same words.
ReplyDeleteIt is a powerful poem. No wonder we keep returning to it. Frightening at points, no doubt about it.
ReplyDeleteIt is a good thing we have each other when we are anxious or feeling down. And nice to have poetry to express and share feelings.
My favorite poet - Yeats and Robert Penn Warren, and Frost...
ReplyDeleteWhen you are old and gray and full of sleep and nodding by the fire,
Take down this book and slowly read and dream of the soft look your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep.
How many loved your moments of glad grace and loved your beauty with love false or true?
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you, and loved the sorrows of your changing face.
And bending down beside the glowing bars,
murmur a little softly how love fled and paced upon the mountains overhead,
and hid his face amidst a crowd of stars.
Typed from memory by Yeats as well.
Paul, you're right. It's nice we have each other
ReplyDeleteI hate the generalized sadness, and something in real life is sure to come to pass and make me think, "What on earth was I sad about then?"
Renz, that's lovely, just right for an old girl. Yeats is one of my favorites, too.
Oh, I haven't read this in a long time. Love it.
ReplyDeleteThe one Renz posted is my absolute favorite by Yeats.
This is one of my favorites. I must write to you later Mimi or call... In his homily, our priest was talking about tending to the wounded birds!
ReplyDeleteWhich is all of us...
I could not help but think of your blog name!
Thanks for the reminder of a great poem Yeats has that elegaic note so beloved by us Irish (well, half Irish) folks -- that sense of hope against hope, of missed opportunities, but eventually coming round some how...
ReplyDeleteThank you, Mimi.
Three cheers for Yeats.
ReplyDeleteHip, hip, hooray!
He is good for the soul.
Prayers for you, et al, Mimi.
ReplyDelete(Just been to You-Know-Where, and witnessed The Unpleasantness)
Prayers all around!
[PS: if you have moderating privileges at OCICBOV, I left a post in the hopper there, too]