William Butler Yeats (June 13, 1865 - January 28, 1939)
Born in Dublin, the poet and dramatist William Butler Yeats is considered to be one of the most important writers of 20th century literature. In 1923, he was the first Irishman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, although he is often credited as being one of the rare writers who composed his best work, including 1929's The Winding Stair and Other Poems, after the award.
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 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?
This poem touched many a person. There is a Sopranos episode which is titled after and features the poem. Director Kevin Smith and his friend Walt Flanagan wrote a Batman comic Batman: The Widening Gyre which is named and themed after this poem. The poem is featured in Stephen King's The Stand. Even a story of African literature, Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart is titled from this poem. These are just some of the many examples of those who drew inspiration from this poem. Although I have read the latter two of these examples, I gave all of these examples to illustrate how varied and beautiful this poem is to people. The beauty of poetry is that people can analyze poems and discuss the various meanings and themes found in the poem. However, even intellectually knowing these themes, a person can still find that poems have a line or meaning that resonates with a reader for reasons known only to that reader.
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?
This poem touched many a person. There is a Sopranos episode which is titled after and features the poem. Director Kevin Smith and his friend Walt Flanagan wrote a Batman comic Batman: The Widening Gyre which is named and themed after this poem. The poem is featured in Stephen King's The Stand. Even a story of African literature, Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart is titled from this poem. These are just some of the many examples of those who drew inspiration from this poem. Although I have read the latter two of these examples, I gave all of these examples to illustrate how varied and beautiful this poem is to people. The beauty of poetry is that people can analyze poems and discuss the various meanings and themes found in the poem. However, even intellectually knowing these themes, a person can still find that poems have a line or meaning that resonates with a reader for reasons known only to that reader.
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