[1]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n Turning and turning in the widening gyre[2]<\/sup><\/a> Surely some revelation is at hand; \u2014<\/b>\u00a01921<\/p>\n
\nThe falcon cannot hear the falconer;
\nThings fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
\nMere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
\nThe blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
\nThe ceremony of innocence is drowned;
\nThe best lack all conviction, while the worst
\nAre full of passionate intensity.<\/p>\n
\nSurely the Second Coming is at hand.
\nThe Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
\nWhen a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi<\/i>[3]<\/sup><\/a>
\nTroubles my sight:\u00a0 somewhere in sands of the desert
\nA shape with lion body and the head of a man,[4]<\/sup><\/a>
\nA gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
\nIs moving its slow thighs, while all about it
\nReel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
\nThe darkness drops again; but now I know
\nThat twenty centuries of stony sleep[5]<\/sup><\/a>
\nWere vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,[6]<\/sup><\/a>
\nAnd what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
\nSlouches towards Bethlehem[7]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0to be born?<\/p>\n