by William Butler Yeats (1865 - 1939)
The Second Coming
Language: English
Available translation(s): GER
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?
First published in Nation, November 1920
Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
Authorship:
- by William Butler Yeats (1865 - 1939), "The Second Coming" [author's text checked 1 time against a primary source]
Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):
- by Gary Bachlund (b. 1947), "The Second Coming", 2005 [ baritone and piano ], from Three Magical Songs, no. 3 [sung text checked 1 time]
- by Lowell Dykstra (b. 1952), "The Second Coming", 1998, published 2001, first performed 2000 [ baritone and piano ], from Youth and Age, no. 6, Amsterdam, Donemus [sung text checked 1 time]
- by Jonathan Harvey (1939 - 2012), "The Second Coming", published 1968 [ soprano, baritone, SATB chorus, and chamber orchestra ], from Cantata I [sung text not yet checked]
- by Ruth Schonthal (1924 - 2006), "The Second Coming", 1949 [ mezzo-soprano and piano ], from Nine Lyric Dramatic Songs, no. 9, Furore Edition [sung text not yet checked]
- by John Kenneth Tavener (1944 - 2013), "The Second Coming" [sung text checked 1 time]
Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):
- GER German (Deutsch) [singable] (Walter A. Aue) , "Das zweite Kommen", copyright © 2010, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
This text was added to the website: 2007-05-02
Line count: 22
Word count: 164