The Second Coming - Favorite Poem of All Time

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

well, the title pretty much says it. When I read this last week, it blew me away. I just think it is genuis. Every line is memorable.

Anyone else feel the same?

[Virgil]

Well I don't know about favorite poem, but it is magnificent. Let's post it:


The Second Coming
by William Butler Yeats

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?

Almost every line is spectacular.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

I know, its hard to pick a favorite line.

[Fire Mage]

I've always had an inclination towards the lines at the beginning:


Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
Ever since I read Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe.

That's simply a superficial inclination at best since I liked the book so much. Overall, the poem is excellent in itself and I don't think there is a "best line."

[Virgil]

If there is a favorite part, let me pick the very openning:


Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

I love that. :)

[Charles Darnay]

I agree Virgil, those are the best lines.