1355, Second Coming Posted by Naanaa, Sat Dec-04-04 05:18 PM
this is the poem Chinua Achebe got the idea for 'Things Fall Apart'. it was written right before WWII, but i think it's interesting to read today and see how relevant it still is.
THE SECOND COMING By: W.B. Yeats
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 the 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. What rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
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