"The Second Coming" is one of W.B. Yeats's most famous poems. Written in 1919 soon after the end of World War I, it describes a deeply mysterious and powerful alternative to the Christian idea of the Second Coming—Jesus's prophesied return to the Earth as a savior announcing the Kingdom of Heaven. The poem's first stanza describes a world of chaos, confusion, and pain. The second, longer stanza imagines the speaker receiving a vision of the future, but this vision replaces Jesus's heroic return with what seems to be the arrival of a grotesque beast. With its distinct imagery and vivid description of society's collapse, "The Second Coming" is also one of Yeats's most quoted poems.
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The Full Text of “The Second Coming”
1Turning and turning in the widening gyre
2The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
3Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
4Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
5The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
6The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
7The best lack all conviction, while the worst
8Are full of passionate intensity.
9Surely some revelation is at hand;
10Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
11The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
12When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
13Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
14A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
15A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
16Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
17Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
18The darkness drops again; but now I know
19That twenty centuries of stony sleep
20Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
21And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
22Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
The Full Text of “The Second Coming”
1Turning and turning in the widening gyre
2The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
3Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
4Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
5The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
6The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
7The best lack all conviction, while the worst
8Are full of passionate intensity.
9Surely some revelation is at hand;
10Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
11The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
12When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
13Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
14A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
15A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
16Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
17Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
18The darkness drops again; but now I know
19That twenty centuries of stony sleep
20Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
21And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
22Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
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“The Second Coming” Summary
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“The Second Coming” Themes
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Civilization, Chaos, and Control
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Morality and Christianity
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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “The Second Coming”
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Lines 1-2
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer; -
Lines 3-6
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; -
Lines 7-8
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity. -
Lines 9-13
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: -
Lines 13-17
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. -
Lines 18-20
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle, -
Lines 21-22
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
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“The Second Coming” Symbols
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The Falcon
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The Beast
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“The Second Coming” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language
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Alliteration
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Allusion
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Antithesis
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Anaphora
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Assonance
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Caesura
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Consonance
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Enjambment
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Epistrophe
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Metaphor
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Rhetorical Question
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Diacope
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“The Second Coming” Vocabulary
Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.
- Gyre
- Falcon/Falconer
- Anarchy
- Loosed
- Blood-dimmed
- Revelation
- Second Coming
- Spiritus Mundi
- Pitiless
- Reel
- Indignant
- Vexed
- Slouches
- Bethlehem
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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “The Second Coming”
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Form
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Meter
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Rhyme Scheme
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“The Second Coming” Speaker
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“The Second Coming” Setting
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Literary and Historical Context of “The Second Coming”
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More “The Second Coming” Resources
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External Resources
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Yeats and the Supernatural — A clip discussing Yeats, faeries, and Irish occult tradition.
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The Second Coming in Popular Culture — An interesting article outlining the poem's quotability.
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Yeats's Vision — A website dedicated to exploring and understanding the heady text Yeats wrote about his view of the world.
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Yeats's Voice — In this clip, Yeats reads one of his most famous poems in his distinctive tone.
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A Reading of the Poem — Dominic West (of The Wire fame) reads the poem.
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LitCharts on Other Poems by William Butler Yeats
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