The Second Coming, by Willim Butler Yeats

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William Butler Yeats’ “The Second Coming” is one of the famous and well-known poem. It describes an apocalyptic situation in the first stanza while also assuring the readers of the hope of the arrival of a messianic figure in the second. The gloomy, darksome picture that is delineated by Yeats creates a fear in the reader’s mind about the falling worldly conditions as optimistic language later tried to give hope. This feeling of apocalypse came into Yeats’ mind as the world was advancing at a fast speed and he felt it needed to slow down a bit. Thus, the poem “The Second Coming” came about.

The poem begins with a horrifying scene as “things fall apart” as the falcon which symbolizes evilness, turns to the “widening gyre”. This creates a terrifying timidity in the reader from the beginning. The first stanza further goes along to instigate more frightening feeling as goodness is sinking down when the speaker says, “innocence is drowned”. On the other hand, the evildoers or “the worst are full of passionate intensity”. From this first stanza, it is clear that a satanic takeover is on t...

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