< Return to Video

"The Second Coming" by William Butler Yeats

  • 0:03 - 0:06
    The Second Coming by William Butler Yeats
  • 0:08 - 0:10
    Turning and turning in the widening gyre
  • 0:10 - 0:14
    The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
  • 0:14 - 0:19
    Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
  • 0:19 - 0:22
    Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
  • 0:22 - 0:28
    The blood-dimmed tide is loosed,
    and everywhere
  • 0:28 - 0:32
    The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
  • 0:32 - 0:38
    The best lack all conviction,
    while the worst
  • 0:38 - 0:43
    Are full of passionate intensity.
  • 0:43 - 0:47
    Surely some revelation is at hand;
  • 0:47 - 0:51
    Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
  • 0:51 - 0:55
    The Second Coming!
    Hardly are those words out
  • 0:55 - 0:59
    When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
  • 0:59 - 1:03
    Troubles my sight: somewhere
    in sands of the desert
  • 1:03 - 1:07
    A shape with lion body
    and the head of a man,
  • 1:07 - 1:11
    A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
  • 1:11 - 1:15
    Is moving its slow thighs,
    while all about it
  • 1:15 - 1:22
    Reel shadows of
    the indignant desert birds.
  • 1:22 - 1:28
    The darkness drops again; but now I know
  • 1:28 - 1:32
    That twenty centuries of stony sleep
  • 1:32 - 1:35
    Were vexed to nightmare
    by a rocking cradle,
  • 1:35 - 1:40
    And what rough beast,
    its hour come round at last,
  • 1:40 - 1:45
    Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
Title:
"The Second Coming" by William Butler Yeats
Description:
more » « less
Video Language:
English
Team:
closed TED
Project:
TED-Ed
Duration:
01:57

English subtitles

Revisions Compare revisions

Our website uses cookies for analysis purposes.