The Second Coming BY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

[kentuck]

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?

[XanaDUer2]

1. Beautiful and terrifying nt

[benfranklin1776]

3. Very apropos.

The center does not hold, particularly when subjected to the horror of a tidal wave of human barbarity being inflicted on one’s fellow humans.

This was in the opening pages of the Steven King masterwork the Stand. One of the most terrifying parts of that book was, to me, the unraveling of human society as he depicted because he understands so well the evil inside of people that can be unleashed that rips the thin veneer of civilization away with rapidity.

That said these collective crises are not the superflu he wrote of in that seminal work with a 99 percent mortality rate,and if we heed the warning of Yates, and we the sane rational people stand together to defend and advance principles of basic human decency those destructive forces that sociopathic individuals like Abbott and Deathsantis and the ultimate deadly destructive vector, Agent Orange, have set loose on the world can be vanquished before their butchery wreaks irreversible damage.

[XanaDUer2]

10. I truly hope

this poem is reminding me of Afghanistan.

[benfranklin1776]

15. Indeed yes sadly.

Which is why a truly effective UN peacekeeping force to enforce a peace treaty would be immensely helpful in protecting the civilian population from being savaged by the Taliban. Alas the way that organization has been hobbled it is incapable at present from performing that task but it underscores the need for rapid revitalization of that mission so we don’t have to shoulder that burden exclusively and we have better options than the untenable situation President Biden has been stuck with.

[iemanja]

2. One of my favorite poems

From my favorite poet.

[Efilroft Sul]

4. You're speaking my language.

My rising 10th grade son did a haunting video on this last year for his Honors English and slayed it.

[11 Bravo]

5. See my sig line. I've had it for years.

[kentuck]

7. +1000

[11 Bravo]

9. Back at ya!

Yeats certainly had a way with words.

[The Wizard]

6. entropy

[retread]

8. Every time I saw TFG this song entered my head. Thought I was done but now DeathSantis!

[solara]

12. "The Second Coming" by Yeats is one of my favorite poems for many reasons

And, one of my favorite Joni Mitchell songs to be sure is "Slouching Toward Bethlehem" ... This is from "Night Ride Home" 1991 - based upon the Yeats poem.. the arrangement is killer

[kentuck]

13. Wow!

I had never heard that!

[solara]

14. It wasn't one of her hits.. but

the first time I heard it - that was my response too..