The Second Coming
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: a waste of desert sand;
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
Wind 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?
Quick facts about “The Second Coming”
- Author
- W. B. Yeats
- First line
- Turning and turning in the widening gyre
- Length
- 22 lines in 2 stanzas
- Time to learn
- about 11 minutes
Questions about “The Second Coming”
Who wrote “The Second Coming”?
“The Second Coming” was written by W. B. Yeats.
What is the first line of “The Second Coming”?
The first line of “The Second Coming” is: “Turning and turning in the widening gyre”
How long is “The Second Coming”?
“The Second Coming” is 22 lines long, in 2 stanzas.
How long does it take to memorize “The Second Coming”?
Plan on about 11 minutes in the Memorizun trainer, which hides words and letters step by step so you recall the text instead of rereading it. A few short sessions on separate days help it stick.
What is the best way to memorize “The Second Coming”?
Read it aloud once or twice, then use the trainer to hide more of the text each round until you can say it without looking. Learn it stanza by stanza, then join the stanzas together. Review it again the next day.
