The Second Coming

Poetry › William Butler Yeats (1923)

Yeats’ “The Second Coming” envisions a world descending into chaos at the end of an historical cycle, where order gives way to violence and a monstrous new age is born from the ruins of the old.

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 5 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. 10 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, 15 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, 20 And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

—W. B. Yeats (1923)

Introduction and Context

Composed in 1919 in the aftermath of World War I, the Easter Rising, and the Russian Revolution, “The Second Coming” captures W. B. Yeats’ apocalyptic vision of a world on the brink of transformation. The poem’s tone of prophetic dread and mythic symbolism has made it one of the most cited works of the twentieth century—its opening lines, “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold,” have entered the cultural lexicon as shorthand for civilizational breakdown.

Yeats wrote the poem amid profound global upheaval, interpreting contemporary chaos through his own mystical theory of history developed in A Vision (1925). There, he imagines history as a series of gyres—interlocking cones representing cycles of order and disorder. As one age reaches its peak, it begins to dissolve, giving rise to its opposite. “The Second Coming” dramatizes this turning of the gyres: the Christian era (“twenty centuries of stony sleep”) is ending, and a new, terrifying epoch is emerging.

The poem’s title alludes to the Christian prophecy of Christ’s return, yet Yeats inverts this expectation: instead of salvation, he envisions a monstrous birth—a “rough beast” born not of divinity but of violent instinct. The imagery of falcon and falconer, anarchy and blood-dimmed tides, evokes both spiritual disconnection and political collapse. The poem’s prophetic voice fuses biblical cadence with modern despair, embodying the Modernist anxiety that civilization’s rational and moral foundations were disintegrating.

Stylistically, the poem blends apocalyptic prophecy, mythic archetype, and stark modern imagery. Its rhythm, enjambment, and repetition convey both inevitability and panic. Yeats’ use of Spiritus Mundi—the “world soul” or collective unconscious of humanity—suggests that this vision is not personal hallucination but an archetypal revelation. The poem’s power lies in its ambiguity: the “rough beast” might represent the birth of modernity itself—technological, violent, godless—or simply the cyclical recurrence of chaos that defines human history.

Today, “The Second Coming” feels uncannily prescient. Its vision of social fragmentation, loss of faith, and resurgent fanaticism continues to resonate in political and cultural crises worldwide. As a Modernist text, it exemplifies Yeats’ ambition to unite myth, prophecy, and history in a single, terrifying image of the modern condition.

Questions for Consideration

1. What does the falcon’s inability to hear the falconer symbolize? How does this image establish the poem’s central tension?
2. What does Yeats mean by “the centre cannot hold”? Consider its moral, political, and spiritual implications.
3. How does the poem’s rhythm and repetition create a prophetic or incantatory tone?
4. How does Yeats transform the Christian idea of the “Second Coming”?
5. What might the “rough beast” represent—historically, spiritually, or psychologically?
6. In what ways does the poem reflect Yeats’ theory of the gyres from A Vision?
7. How does Yeats use apocalyptic imagery to comment on the modern world after World War I?
8. What role does Spiritus Mundi play in the poem’s vision of revelation?
9. How does Yeats reconcile (or fail to reconcile) his mystical beliefs with the horrors of modernity?
10. Why does the poem remain relevant in the twenty-first century? Where do we see echoes of its prophecy today?

Sample Journal Approaches

Below are sample approaches demonstrating how journal reflections might engage the poem’s language and form.

1. How do Yeats’ images of collapse—“Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold”—speak to your own sense of political or social instability today? Can you find a modern parallel that captures a similar sense of fragmentation or uncertainty?
2. When the falcon “cannot hear the falconer,” what personal experiences of disconnection or loss of direction come to mind? How might Yeats’ image illuminate moments when traditional structures of meaning fail?
3. Yeats transforms the idea of the “Second Coming” into something dark and monstrous. What might this inversion suggest about faith, progress, or morality in modern life? Can you think of a contemporary “rough beast” that symbolizes our age?
4. How does the concept of Spiritus Mundi—a shared source of human vision—shape your understanding of inspiration or creativity? Do you see today’s artists, writers, or media creators channeling something collective, or has that connection weakened?
5. Yeats believed history moves in cycles of rise and decline. Do you find this idea pessimistic or comforting? How might the notion of destruction leading to renewal relate to your own experiences of change or growth?
6. “The best lack all conviction, while the worst / Are full of passionate intensity.” How does this tension between apathy and extremism appear in our world—or in your own life? What does Yeats seem to be urging his readers to consider about moral conviction?
7. How does the poem’s repetition—especially “Surely some revelation is at hand”—create a feeling of prophecy or inevitability? What lines or sounds in the poem most compel you to believe its vision?
8. What effect does Yeats’ violent diction (“anarchy,” “blood-dimmed,” “drowned”) have on your reading experience? How does the poem’s sound and rhythm help communicate chaos?
9. Each time “The Second Coming” appears in the poem, its meaning shifts. How does this repetition change your interpretation as the poem unfolds? Can you think of another poem, song, or text where repetition changes meaning or tone?
10. Consider the long, rushing sentence that follows “The Second Coming!” How does Yeats’ syntax mirror the unstoppable nature of revelation? When has language in a text (or even in your own writing) seemed to carry you forward uncontrollably?
11. How do Yeats’ musical choices—his rhythm, alliteration, and tone—shape your emotional response to the poem? Why might beauty intensify rather than soften the poem’s apocalyptic vision?