The Second Coming written by W.B Yates (1865-1939) sparked a reaction out of me. This week marked the 10th anniversary of the tragic day of 9/11/2001 and everywhere I went I was reminded of it. The news, bill boards, newspaper, even church sermons spoke of the unspeakable merciless acts human kind can do to one another. As I read this poem I thought of this tragic event and several others our world has endured and brought upon ourselves such as; The great depression, the holocaust, slavery, and the many wars that were fought. Today our country continues to face its own tribulations. I did have to look up the definitions of a few words to understand the context of the words used in poem for it to all come together. As I read the first paragraph his words painted a gloomy picture of our a world that is constantly changing and growing and expressed how he foresees mankind self destructing, how we have become cruel in nature and don’t cherish our world and all that we have. Yates feels there is a need to reset and rebuild our lives, or must we face the extinction of life so we can begin all over again? In the first paragraph Yates uses a falcon as representation of humans (they prey on others smaller than themselves in this situation its the earth and each other) he states how there is nothing but chaos seen around the world in this case he may be talking about wars that he has witnessed in his time and sees this trend of killing is spreading throughout the years, people are becoming more careless and ruthless innocence in people is no longer seen when he states “The blood-dimmed tide is loosed and is everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned;” (5-6 ). Yates goes on to speak that those who are malicious are passionate to takeover and create mayhem, and are succeeding.
“Surely some revelation at hand, Surly the second coming is at hand” (9-10).
Here Yates feels throughout all these viciousness acts there is good to come in the end, our second chance to redeem ourselves will come in the end. Yet Yates wonder if it is possible for us to change when he writes “When a vast image out of spiritus mundi Troubles my sight; a waste of dessert sand.”(12-13). “A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun is moving its slow thighs, while all about it”(15-16).
Yates finishes this poem with the line “slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?” I felt he was saying do we have a chance or must earth be reborn. For more information on Yates click
here.
Picture provided by:
http://www.discogs.com/artist/William+Butler+Yeats?anv=W.B.+Yates&filter_anv=1
I did this same poem. I wish I hadn't because it turned out to be way to deep for me, but it spoke to me so I ran with it. Ironically you and I interpreted it differently. I picked out alot of biblical references and came to the conclusion that the poem is about war or about what yates believes the Second Coming of Christ will be like. I do like how in the begining of your paper you included how the poem made you feel. That made it personnal.There is some grammer errors here though. Run on sentences in first paragraph after your parenthesis. Great job.
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