Lyric Poem · Life
The Second Coming
by W. B. Yeats · 1920
1Turning and turning in the widening gyre
2The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
3Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
4Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
5The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
6The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
7The best lack all conviction, while the worst
8Are full of passionate intensity.
9Surely some revelation is at hand;
10Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
11The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
12When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
13Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
14A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
15A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
16Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
17Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.
18The darkness drops again but now I know
19That twenty centuries of stony sleep
20Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
21And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
22Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
Full-text availability follows the United States display decision recorded below; status can differ elsewhere.
“The Second Coming” by W. B. Yeats — quilloak.com/poems/the-second-coming
Quick facts
- Poem
- The Second Coming
- Poet
- W. B. Yeats
- Published
- 1920
- Length
- 22 lines
- Form
- Lyric Poem
- Themes
- Life, Power & Hubris, War & Remembrance
Craft notes
How this poem works
Measured from the text on this page, not copied from a summary. Counts are approximate: syllables and rhymes come from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, which models General American English, so dialect, older pronunciation, and performance can all change what you hear.
- Shape
- 22 lines · 2 stanzas of 8–14 lines
- Line length
- Lines run 10-11 syllables (median 10), consistent with pentameter. No single length dominates, which is normal once elision and contraction are in play.
Want the rules this form is measured against? Read what makes a lyric poem, or run your own draft through the form checker to see the same measurements on your lines. How we measure · Report a mistake
Text, source & rights
A traceable edition
Full-text display is based on the cited edition and a United States term-expiry review.
- Author record
- W. B. Yeats1865–1939
- Source record
- WikisourceThe Second Coming by william-butler-yeats, Wikisource transcription
- Display decision
- Full text · United States · reviewed 2026-07-18
- Publication record
- 1920
- Text fingerprint
- SHA-256 7a6a944e88f48154…
- Editorial handling
- Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.