This has been stuck in my head so I'm posting it here and other places too. William Butler Yeats (1865-1939) 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: a waste of desert sand; 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 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, And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
Me too but there's something about "The Second Coming" that just nags at me. Like it's prophetic...... Here's another of his I like: I WILL arise and go now, and go to Innisfree, And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made: Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee, And live alone in the bee-loud glade. And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow, Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings; There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow, And evening full of the linnet's wings. I will arise and go now, for always night and day I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore; While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey, I hear it in the deep heart's core.
I dislike showing how ignorant i am ( although i do it constantly) but i ask someone to explain the poem. Is he talking of Jesus? My education is limted but i still strive to understand.
Wow! read the explanation on the referred site. I think Robert Frost is more my speed, but i truly appreciate the help.
<table width="601" align="CENTER" bgcolor="#ffffff" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="2"><tbody><tr><td align="CENTER"> </td></tr> <tr><td> </td></tr> <tr><td align="CENTER">[SIZE=+1]1. The Road Not Taken[/SIZE]</td></tr> <tr><td> </td></tr> </tbody></table> <table width="601" align="CENTER" bgcolor="#ffffff" border="0" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="0"> <tbody><tr><td><table align="CENTER" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"> <tbody><tr><td> </td></tr> <tr><td>T[SIZE=-1]WO[/SIZE] roads diverged in a yellow wood,</td><td></td></tr> <tr><td>And sorry I could not travel both</td><td></td></tr> <tr><td>And be one traveler, long I stood</td><td></td></tr> <tr><td>And looked down one as far as I could</td><td></td></tr> <tr><td>To where it bent in the undergrowth;</td><td valign="TOP" align="RIGHT">[SIZE=-2] 5[/SIZE]</td></tr> <tr><td> </td></tr> <tr><td>Then took the other, as just as fair,</td><td></td></tr> <tr><td>And having perhaps the better claim,</td><td></td></tr> <tr><td>Because it was grassy and wanted wear;</td><td></td></tr> <tr><td>Though as for that the passing there</td><td></td></tr> <tr><td>Had worn them really about the same,</td><td valign="TOP" align="RIGHT">[SIZE=-2] 10[/SIZE]</td></tr> <tr><td> </td></tr> <tr><td>And both that morning equally lay</td><td></td></tr> <tr><td>In leaves no step had trodden black.</td><td></td></tr> <tr><td>Oh, I kept the first for another day!</td><td></td></tr> <tr><td>Yet knowing how way leads on to way,</td><td></td></tr> <tr><td>I doubted if I should ever come back.</td><td valign="TOP" align="RIGHT">[SIZE=-2] 15[/SIZE]</td></tr> <tr><td> </td></tr> <tr><td>I shall be telling this with a sigh</td><td></td></tr> <tr><td>Somewhere ages and ages hence:</td><td></td></tr> <tr><td>Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—</td><td></td></tr> <tr><td>I took the one less traveled by,</td><td></td></tr> <tr><td>And that has made all the difference.</td><td valign="TOP" align="RIGHT">[SIZE=-2] 20[/SIZE]</td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table>Robert Frost [SIZE=-1](1874–1963) [/SIZE]
