W.B. Yeats wrote a poem in 1919 that basically predicted the rest of the century. Honestly, it’s a bit creepy. When you read The Second Coming, you aren't just looking at old ink on a page; you're looking at a blueprint for how societies fall apart. People quote this thing constantly. Whether it's Joan Didion using "Slouching Towards Bethlehem" as a title or Chinua Achebe pulling "Things Fall Apart" for his masterpiece, the poem has become a sort of shorthand for global anxiety.
But what was Yeats actually talking about?
He wasn't just grumpy about the news. He was watching the world he knew dissolve. World War I had just ended, leaving millions dead and a continent in literal ruins. The Russian Revolution had just happened. Ireland was in the middle of its own bloody struggle for independence. To Yeats, it felt like the "gyre"—his specific term for historical cycles—was spinning out of control. It’s that feeling when the wheels come off.
The Gyre and the Falcon: Why the Center Cannot Hold
The poem opens with one of the most famous images in literature: a falcon turning in a widening gyre. If you aren't a Yeats nerd, a "gyre" is basically a giant spiritual funnel or cone. Yeats had this complex, slightly bizarre theory that history moves in 2,000-year cycles. He believed that when one cycle reaches its widest point, it collapses, and a new, opposite cycle begins.
The falcon can't hear the falconer. It’s a terrifying metaphor for a loss of control. Think of a drone losing its GPS signal or a dog slipping its leash in traffic. The connection is severed. This is where we get the line: "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold."
When Yeats wrote this, he was looking at the breakdown of traditional authority. For him, the "center" was order, tradition, and perhaps a bit of the aristocratic stability he loved. When the center fails, you don't just get a little mess. You get "mere anarchy" loosed upon the world. He uses the word "mere" in the old-fashioned sense, meaning "utter" or "absolute." It’s total.
🔗 Read more: Mike Judge Presents: Tales from the Tour Bus Explained (Simply)
He describes a "blood-dimmed tide." It sounds like a horror movie, right? But he was likely thinking of the real blood being shed in the streets of Moscow and Dublin. He’s arguing that the best people—the ones with integrity—lack all conviction. Meanwhile, the worst people are full of "passionate intensity." We see this today every time a moderate voice is drowned out by a screaming extremist on social media. Yeats saw it coming a hundred years ago.
That Rough Beast Slouching Towards Bethlehem
Midway through The Second Coming, the poem shifts from the present chaos to a terrifying vision of the future. Yeats claims his "Spiritus Mundi" (a kind of collective world-soul or universal memory) is giving him a glimpse of what's next.
He sees a desert. He sees a creature with a lion body and the head of a man.
"A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs..."
This isn't the Jesus of the New Testament. It’s something else entirely. Yeats is subverting the traditional Christian idea of the "Second Coming." Usually, that's a hopeful event—the return of a savior. But for Yeats, the next 2,000-year cycle is going to be the opposite of the last one. If the last 2,000 years were defined by Christianity (which he saw as a "cradle" of peace), the next cycle is going to be something harsh, cold, and "pitiless."
💡 You might also like: Big Brother 27 Morgan: What Really Happened Behind the Scenes
The "rough beast" represents a new era of power and perhaps totalitarianism. Critics like Richard Ellmann have pointed out that Yeats seemed to sense the rise of fascism long before the rest of the world caught on. The beast isn't running; it’s slouching. That’s a specific word choice. It implies something heavy, inevitable, and fundamentally "un-human." It’s heading toward Bethlehem to be born, which is Yeats's way of saying that the very birthplace of the old order will be the site where the new, darker order begins.
Why We Can't Stop Quoting Yeats
It’s actually kind of wild how much this poem permeates our culture. You’ve probably seen the phrase "the center cannot hold" in about a thousand political op-eds this year.
Why does it stick?
Because it captures the specific vibe of "pre-apocalypse." It’s not the end of the world yet; it’s the moment you realize the end is starting.
- In Politics: We use it whenever institutions fail. When the "falconer" (the government or the law) loses the "falcon" (the people), Yeats is the first person we turn to.
- In Literature: Toni Morrison and Stephen King have both leaned on Yeatsian imagery to describe a world that has lost its moral compass.
- In Daily Life: That feeling you get when you scroll through the news and feel a sense of "vexed" sleep? That’s Yeats.
Some scholars, like Helen Vendler, argue that we shouldn't just read the poem as a political prophecy. She suggests it's also about the internal mind—how our own thoughts can spin out of control until we lose our "center." It’s a psychological breakdown as much as a social one.
📖 Related: The Lil Wayne Tracklist for Tha Carter 3: What Most People Get Wrong
What This Means For You Today
If you’re reading The Second Coming for the first time, or the fiftieth, don't just look for the "scary" parts. Look at the warning about conviction.
Yeats was terrified of "passionate intensity" when it wasn't backed by "conviction." He was worried about people who are loud but empty. If you want to apply this to the 21st century, start by looking at where you get your "intensity." Is it coming from a place of deep value, or are you just caught in a widening gyre of noise?
The poem doesn't offer a happy ending. It doesn't tell us how to stop the beast. It just tells us that the beast is coming.
Actionable Steps for Exploring Yeats Further
If you want to actually understand the depth of what’s happening in this poem, don't just read a summary. Do these three things:
- Read "Leda and the Swan": This is another Yeats poem about the start of a historical cycle (the Greek era). It’s violent and strange, but it helps explain his "gyre" theory much better.
- Look up his book "A Vision": It’s a very weird, very dense book where he explains his mystical theories. You don't need to read the whole thing (hardly anyone has), but skim the sections on historical cones.
- Listen to a recording: Find a recording of someone with a thick Irish accent reading The Second Coming. The rhythm of the words—"the rocking cradle," "twenty centuries of stony sleep"—is designed to be heard, not just read. It’s supposed to sound like an incantation or a spell.
The world might feel like it's falling apart, but at least we have the right words to describe the mess. Yeats gave us the vocabulary for our own chaos. That’s why we’re still talking about him. It’s why we’ll probably still be talking about him when the next gyre starts spinning.