The Second Coming

1. The Second Coming • Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon can not hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the center cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhereThe ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worstAre full of passionate intensity. Surely some revelation is at hand; Surely the Seconding Coming is at hand.

2. The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out When a vast image out of Spiritus MundiTroubles 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?

3. Analysis The title is taken from Christian doctrine meaning the arrival of a new god. It blends Christ's prediction of this Second Coming and St. John's description of the beast of Apocalypse in Revelation. Yeats's combination of these two events vividly presents the potential crisis of Europe at that time. The coming of the new era is not the peaceful world brought by Christ but a warring world brought by Apocalypse.

4. ㈤ When you are old When you are old and grey and full of sleep,And nodding by the fire, take down this book,And slowly read, and dream of the soft look,Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;How many loved your moments of glad grace,And loved your beauty with love false or true,But one man loved the pilgrim Soul in you,And loved the sorrows of your changing face;And bending down beside the glowing bars,Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled,And paced upon the mountains overhead,And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

5. 当你老了 袁可嘉译　　　　当你老了，头白了，睡意昏沉，　　　　炉火旁打盹，请取下这部诗歌，　　　　慢慢读，回想你过去眼神的柔和，　　　　回想它们昔日浓重的阴影；　　　　多少人爱你青春欢畅的时辰，　　　　爱慕你的美丽，假意或真心，　　　　只有一个人爱你那朝圣者的灵魂，　　　　爱你衰老了的脸上痛苦的皱纹；　　　　垂下头来，在红光闪耀的炉子旁，　　　　凄然地轻轻诉说那爱情的消逝，　　　　在头顶的山上它缓缓踱着步子，　　　　在一群星星中间隐藏着脸庞。 一生有你（多少人曾爱慕你年轻时的容颜 可知谁愿承受岁月无情的变迁 多少人曾在你生命中来了又还 可知一生有你我都陪在你身边）