Vexed to Nightmare
“A gaze blank and pitiless like the sun,” A line from William Butler Yeats’ poem, “The Second Coming.”
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: 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?
—William Butler Yeats (1865 – 1939)
It wasn’t until I turned fifty that I stumbled across W. B. Yeats’ poem, “The Second Coming.” In my forties, I would regularly be shocked that, at such an advanced age, I was still discovering great works of art—some that I’d never even heard of before. Now, I’m counting on it. Surely the Germans have a word that encapsulates this experience we English speakers must use a paragraph to describe, but that particular rush that comes when the clarity and beauty of great art catches us by surprise is an experience I have come to treasure. When Yeats’ poem finally found its way to me, I could barely comprehend what I was reading because my heart started palpitating before I’d even finished the first two lines. My eyes raced through its genius, catching on phrases like “the blood-dimmed tide is loosed” and the “ceremony of innocence is drowned,” down through all of its relentless, disturbing brilliance, culminating in twenty centuries of stony sleep vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle and a rough beast slouching towards Bethlehem to be born. I mean, holy shit. I had to calm myself down and reread the whole thing about five times.
Every line in this poem deserves memorization, fresh analysis, and recitation in an ominous British accent, but l will limit my efforts to written analysis of just two lines—the least metaphorical of them all:
“The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.”
Perhaps it’s because these lines are not imagery like the rest of the poem—but rather a concise, stark assessment of the times—that the entire poem seems to revolve around them. They may not contain words such as “a gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,” but they strike their own terror in our hearts. We understand that the zeitgeist Yeats identifies in those early decades of the 20th century is the reason the falcon cannot hear the falconer. That it precipitates the anarchy loosed upon the earth. We know that humanity teeters, always, on the precipice of such horrors. We immediately see parallels with our own times, fearing that once again we will descend into madness. We anxiously search our fellow humans for signs of either disposition, oblivious or denying of the necessity to search within ourselves.
You can read more about W. B. Yeats’s life and work at The Poetry Foundation. And you can listen to a great, old recording of the poem below. (It claims to the W. B. Yeats, but I’m not so sure…. Also, try to ignore the visuals. :) Maybe just close your eyes and listen!)
Tales From the Liminal now available as an audiobook on all your favorite platforms!
