Tonight’s poem is difficult, and very famous. Yeats wrote it in January 1919, just after the First World War, when the old world seemed to be breaking apart: millions dead, revolution in Russia, violence beginning in Ireland.
Learn from Songs · Poetry · C1
The Second Coming
Yeats’s dark prophecy written after the First World War, one of the most quoted poems of the century: the present simple for timeless statements, the passive (anarchy is loosed), inversion after hardly, while for contrast (the best lack all conviction, while the worst…), and rhetorical questions, with Philo, Sophia, Marcos and Demetria.
SOPHIA
PHILO
A poem for a frightening time.
SOPHIA
Yes. Its words are quoted again and again, whenever people feel the world is falling apart: things fall apart, the centre cannot hold. A great African novel took its title from that line.
MARCOS
Things fall apart. That describes my room.
Before you listen: the song
Ireland, January 1919
W. B. Yeats wrote “The Second Coming” in January 1919. Europe had just come through the First World War, in which about twenty million people died. The Russian Revolution of 1917 had been followed by civil war, and Ireland was on the edge of its own War of Independence. Yeats also believed in a mystical theory that history moves in great cycles, or “gyres”, of about two thousand years.
The poem was published in 1920 and became one of the most quoted poems in English. Chinua Achebe named his novel Things Fall Apart (1958) after one of its lines, and journalists and politicians still quote it whenever there is a crisis.
In the first part, the speaker describes a world out of control: the falcon cannot hear the falconer, things fall apart. In the second part, he sees a terrible vision: a creature with a lion’s body and a man’s head, like a sphinx, moving slowly in the desert, and he asks what rough beast is coming.
In times of fear, the calm voice is needed most.
The Second Coming
W. B. Yeats (1865–1939)
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?
Words in the poem
gyre: a spiral, a widening circle
falconer: a person who trains a falcon
mere: pure, nothing but
anarchy: total disorder, no government
loosed: set free
blood-dimmed: darkened with blood
ceremony of innocence: the rituals of a peaceful, innocent world
conviction: firm belief
intensity: strong feeling
revelation: something revealed by God; a vision
at hand: very near
Spiritus Mundi: “the spirit of the world” (Latin): Yeats’s idea of a shared store of images
pitiless: without pity
reel: turn round and round, dizzy
indignant: angry
vexed: troubled, disturbed
slouches: walks slowly and heavily
Read and listen: the two parts
PHILO
Read the poem twice. What is happening in the first eight lines? What does the speaker see in the second part? How does the poem end?
SOPHIA
This is a C1 text: use the glossary, and don’t worry if some lines stay mysterious. Even experts argue about them. Then answer Section A.
🦅 Listen to the song: “The Second Coming” (W. B. Yeats, 1919).Find a reading →
The present simple and the passive for a world out of control
MARCOS
The falcon cannot hear the falconer. Things fall apart. Anarchy is loosed upon the world. Innocence is drowned.
SOPHIA
The present simple makes the statements sound timeless, like laws of nature. The passive (is loosed, is drowned) hides who is doing it: the chaos seems to have no author.
While for contrast
DEMETRIA
The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.
SOPHIA
while / whereas join two contrasting ideas. This line is one of the most quoted in English: good people are unsure and silent, while bad people are loud and certain. Do you agree?
Inversion after hardly
PHILO
Hardly are those words out when a vast image troubles my sight.
SOPHIA
After hardly / scarcely … when and no sooner … than, the auxiliary comes before the subject: Hardly had I arrived when the phone rang. No sooner had we sat down than it began to rain. Formal and dramatic.
Rhetorical questions and the final image
MARCOS
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
SOPHIA
The poem ends with a question that has no answer: the future is unknown and frightening. Notice its hour come round at last = when its time has finally arrived (an old absolute construction).
Sophia’s comparison: Daniel’s beasts and the Sphinx
PHILO
The prophet Daniel saw four great beasts come up out of the sea, one like a lion with eagle’s wings, one like a bear, one like a leopard, and a fourth, terrible and strong. Each was a kingdom that would rise and fall. Prophets have always seen history as beasts.
SOPHIA
And we don’t have to imagine a creature with a lion’s body and a man’s head, Philo: the Sphinx sits in the desert at Giza, a few days up the Nile. And Hesiod taught that the ages of the world grow worse, from gold to silver to bronze to iron. Every age thinks it is the last one.
Sophia’s summary
| Words and forms | Use | Example |
|---|---|---|
| present simple | timeless, law-like statements | Things fall apart. |
| is / are + past participle | the passive: no visible doer | Anarchy is loosed upon the world. |
| while / whereas | contrast | The best lack conviction, while the worst… |
| Hardly + auxiliary + subject … when | inversion, formal and dramatic | Hardly had I arrived when… |
| rhetorical question | an unanswerable question | What rough beast… slouches towards Bethlehem? |
Practice
Listen to the song for Section A, then do the rest. Press “Check my answers” at the end. You can try again as many times as you like.
A · Listen: the song
Listen to the song and choose the best answer.
1. When was the poem written?
2. What can the falcon not do?
3. According to the poem, what do “the best” lack?
4. What creature does the speaker see?
5. Where is the beast going?
6. Which novel took its title from the poem?
B · Grammar and vocabulary
Write the missing word or words.
7. Things apart. (fall, timeless)
8. Anarchy is upon the world. (loose)
9. The best lack all conviction, the worst are full of intensity.
10. Hardly I arrived when the phone rang.
11. No sooner had we sat down it began to rain.
12. The centre cannot . (stay firm)
C · Right or wrong?
Is the sentence correct English?
13. “Hardly I had arrived when it started.”
14. “The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.”
15. “No sooner had we left when it rained.”
16. “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold.”
Talk and write
Discussion and writing
Quote hunt. Search the news (with an adult) for “things fall apart” or “the centre cannot hold”. What situations do people use these lines for? Share one example.
Discuss. 1. Is it true that good people are often unsure while bad people are certain? 2. Why do people in every age think the world is ending? 3. What do you think the “rough beast” is?
Write (150–200 words). The centre cannot hold. Describe a time or place when things seemed to fall apart (from history or a story). Use the passive, while for contrast, and one inversion with hardly or no sooner.
Now play the gamebook: rumours of disaster, and the calm voice the city needs.Play the gamebook →