1. The Second Coming
By W. B Yeats

2. Vocabulary gyre: a spiral turn falcon: a bird of prey
falconer: a person who trains falcons to capture prey
mere: total, absolute
anarchy: total chaos and war
dimmed: made darker
loosed: unleashed
conviction: deep belief in something, such as morals
revelation: a great realization
Second Coming: return of Jesus
vast: huge
Spiritus Mundi: the shared spirit or soul of all people

3. pitiless: without sympathy
reel: whirl around
indignant: upset
vexed: distressed
rough: harsh, crude
slouches: walks slowly, awkwardly, slumped over
Bethlehem: town where Jesus was born

4. Turning around in a spiral that keeps
Turning and turning in the widening gyre, The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart, the center 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 the sands of the Desert.
Turning around in a spiral that keeps
getting wider, the falcon cannot hear his trainer. Things fall apart. Total chaos and rebellion spill into the world. A tidal wave of blood drowns everything innocent. The best people no longer believe in anything, and the worst are extremely passionate about their beliefs, even if they are wrong.
Surely some kind of great truth will be
revealed. Surely Jesus Christ will return to Earth in the Second Coming! As soon as I say this, I see a huge image, which everyone on Earth can also see, and it troubles me.

5. 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?
Somewhere in the sands of the desert, a beast with a lion’s body and a man’s face— with an empty, unsympathetic look in its eyes, is slowly getting up and walking, while angry vultures circle it, out of control.
Darkness falls again. But now I know that this beast, which has been sound asleep like a statue for 2,000 years, has been woken up, and a nightmare is going to start. What is this harsh, crude beast? It walks menacingly towards Bethlehem, where it will be born.

6. William Butler Yeats is buried in the Protestant churchyard, Drumcliff, Co. Sligo, Ireland. Yeats' Grave at Drumcliff. Yeats was born in Dublin into an artistic family.

7. Summary of the Second Coming
The poem begins with the image of a falcon flying out of earshot from its human master. In medieval times, people would use falcons or hawks to track down animals at ground level. In this image, however, the falcon has gotten itself lost by flying too far away, which we can read as a reference to the collapse of traditional social arrangements in Europe at the time Yeats was writing. In the fourth line, the poem abruptly shifts into a description of "anarchy" and an orgy of violence in which "the ceremony of innocence is drowned." The speaker laments that only bad people seem to have any enthusiasm nowadays. At line 9, the second stanza of the poem begins by setting up a new vision. The speaker takes the violence which has engulfed society as a sign that "the Second Coming is at hand." He imagines a sphinx in the desert, and we are meant to think that this mythical animal, rather than Christ, is what is coming to fulfill the prophecy from the Biblical Book of Revelation. At line 18, the vision ends as "darkness drops again," but the speaker remains troubled. Finally, at the end of the poem, the speaker asks a rhetorical question which really amounts to a prophecy that the beast is on its way to Bethlehem, the birthplace of Christ, to be born into the world.

8. Symbol Analysis
Title: "The Second Coming" is an allusion to the reappearance of Christ as prophesied in the Book of Revelation.
Lines 4-6: These lines contain two more allusions to the Bible. First, the word "anarchy" calls to mind the reign of Satan on Earth before Christ comes back. However, more specifically, it also brings to mind the Biblical flood that sent Noah packing the wife, kids, and a few pets into the ark. Interestingly, the poem spans the entire length of the Bible in these lines, from Genesis (the flood) to Revelation. Yeats’s image is noticeably more violent than the Bible ("blood-dimmed tide," "drowned"). It’s like the big flood viewed from the perspective of those who didn’t make it into the ark. Another notable thing about these lines is the work being done by the word "loosed," which translates roughly to "unleashed" or "let free." It’s a word that can be applied to a liquid like water, but also has the implication of a more animalistic force. In this way, it prefaces the symbolic unleashing of the "rough beast" later in the poem.
Lines 13-14: The description of the sphinx in the desert recalls several themes from the Bible. First, as we know, the sphinx is that big stone animal that tourists like to snap pictures of in Egypt. In the Book of Exodus in the Old Testament, Egypt is where the Jewish people where held in bondage until they were freed by Charleton Heston, that is, Moses. Also, these lines bring to mind the story of Christ’s temptation by Satan in the desert. So, in a sense, the desert is the devil’s home. Finally, the sphinx itself, as a mash-up of two different animals (man and lion), can be compared with similarly confused species in the Book of Revelation, such as locusts with scorpion tails (ouch!).
Line 19: "Stony sleep," "nightmare," and "rocking cradle" are part of an extended metaphor comparing the "twenty centuries" between Christ and the Second Coming as only one night of an infant’s sleep. The metaphor of sleep suggests either the relative peacefulness or the obliviousness (probably both) which characterized the "twenty centuries" between the First and Second Comings, assuming that the latter is just around the corner.

9. Line 22: Compared to the weird images inspired by the Book of Revelation, this one’s easy. Christ was born in Bethlehem, so that city is a symbol of the entrance of absolute and messianic forces in the world. In the case of Christ, absolute Good. In the case of the "rough beast," well, let’s just say nobody’s going to be greeting this thing with frankincense and myrrh.
Lines 12-17: These lines are an example of symbolism, and they contain several symbols that can really be disconnected from another. In general, they represent a confused "veiled" vision of the "rough beast" described later in the poem. They are said to originate in Spiritus Mundi, a "spirit world" of images and symbols that Yeats believed to have been traditionally available to the most perceptive people (like poets) throughout history. Although lots of smart-sounding people like to say that symbols always have to "mean" something specific, Yeats thought that the best symbols couldn’t ever be fully explained in words. They are "expressive" in a way that passes beyond ordinary speech.