W B Yeats poem The Second Coming written in 1919. br br THE SECOND COMING br br Turning and turning in the widening gyre br The falcon cannot hear the falconer; br Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; br Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, br The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere br The ceremony of innocence is drowned; br The best lack all conviction, while the worst br Are full of passionate intensity. br br Surely some revelation is at hand; br Surely the Second Coming is at hand. br The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out br When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi br Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand; br A shape with lion body and the head of a man, br A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun, br Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it br Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.