The Second Coming (What Rough Beast, Its Hour Come At Last, Slouches towards Bethlehem?)

W.B. Yeats ^ | W.B. Yeats

[quesney]

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?

[quesney]

"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold" "The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity..."

Is this great poem on the cusp of being realized in our time....?

[quesney]

http://www.mcabee.org/~lcm/lines/slouch.html

[quesney]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Second_Coming_(poem)

[gussiefinknottle]

i love yeats.

[quesney]

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: 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?

[schu]

Who can watch all this and not know that true evil is on the move? Yes, it has been since 1914, but evil senses its time has come!

We have moved away from the way of the Lord, evil has filled the void and he is now ready to strike.

Yes, WWI, WWII and the rise of communism were bad, but I fear that evil has had a taste of blood, he likes it and wants more.

When the Obamanation wants to “change the world”, based upon his view of what the world should be, then evil has won this round. When people start thinking and acting like they are God, which he is, then big trouble is on the horizon.

schu

[struggle]

I did my undergrad paper on Yeats and Byzantium being the idea of art as a social construct.

Big fan of him, bigger fan of Maud Gonne.

[struggle]

BTW, the second coming is more about Yeats belief in the 2000 year gyre that rotated into place every other millenium. He believed that from 2000bc - 0bc, humanity was cultural/folk centered, and from 0bc - 2000ad it became individual/self centered (as most govts and religions are based on an individual and not a group). From 2000ad he believed that the individual based society would phase back into the cultural/folk based society, the idea stemming from all the nationalist movements (including the Irish independence movement that he supported) - hence the mention of the gyre.

It also stems from his experiences in the quasi-buddhist society that he was part of in his youth.

[lmc12]

The Obomonster joked about being born in a manger in Bethlehem didn’t he?

[griswold3]

Who can watch all this and not know that true evil is on the move?

Anyone who has abandoned even ‘Reason’ for moral equivolence or moral relevance...

Until there is right and wrong, we’re lost.

[Terry Mross]

I’m proud to be no the RIGHT side of this. And I’m grateful to have eyes that see and ears that hear.

[Tucker39]

If I may, I’d like to submit that the lastest great taste of blood, which today goes on unabated, is the great bloodletting caused by Roe v. Wade.

Pres. Lincoln said that all the blood shed in the Civil War by white Americans was recompense for all the blood shed by the slavemaster’s lash. If that be true, I shudder to think what the recompense will be for all the millions of babies which have been slaughtered since Roe v. Wade.

[thatjoeguy]

“...that a light will shine through that window, a beam of light will come down upon you, you will experience an epiphany ... and you will suddenly realize that you must go to the polls and vote for Obama”

Guess whose quote that is: (google it) :)
Creepy if you ask me.
JB

[Intolerant in NJ]

Why Should Not Old Men Be Mad?

Why should not old men be mad?
Some have known a likely lad
That had a sound fly-fisher's wrist
Turn to a drunken journalist;
A girl that knew all Dante once
Live to bear children to a dunce;
A Helen of social welfare dream
Climb on a wagonette to scream.
Some think it a matter of course that chance
Should starve good men and bad advance,
That if their neighbors figured plain,
As though upon a lighted screen,
No single story would they find
Of an unbroken happy mind,
A finish worthy of the start.
Young men know nothing of this sort,
Observant old men know it well;
And when they know what old books tell,
And that no better can be had,
Know why an old man should be mad.

More Yeats......

[grey_whiskers]

And what rough beast, his hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Washington to be sworn?

LOL!

Consider yourself *highly* commended, sir!

(...but what is so "rough" about That One?)

Cheers!