Friday, March 02, 2007

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 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?

Suggested Read : William Butler Yeats

and a great song video to go with, The End by Doors (thanks to Alex)


6 comments:

Alex said...

BVN,

I just went through the Wiki on this. Interesting.

"Yeats' believed that each human mind was linked to a single vast intelligence, and that this intelligence caused certain universal symbols to appear in individual minds."

Me too. :)

He was an avid reader of William Blake, so was Aldous Huxley. And Jim Morrisson took the name 'The Doors' from Huxley's book. And 'The End' is playing.

:)

Alex said...

BVN,

I am getting some metaphysical thoughts. Thanks dude. ;)

b v n said...

that must me the mari dude :))

Alex said...

Mari ??

Kuan Gung said...

Interesting...good old Yeats!

alakananda said...

i did this poem for my PG. altogether disturbing imagery. and the teacher didn't make it any better.