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?
Word-notes
- gyre – A spiral or circular motion or form.
- falconer – A person who trains and hunts with falcons.
- anarchy – A state of disorder due to the absence or nonrecognition of authority.
- blood-dimmed – Describing a tide or flood of blood, suggesting violence and chaos.
- conviction – Strongly held belief or opinion.
- revelation – A surprising and previously unknown fact, especially one that is made known in a dramatic way.
- Spiritus Mundi – Latin for “spirit of the world,” a concept referring to the collective unconscious or the shared pool of human experience.
- indignant – Feeling or showing anger or annoyance at what is perceived as unfair treatment.
- vexed – Troubled or distressed.
- rough beast – Refers to the sinister force or entity that the speaker imagines is approaching, symbolizing chaos and destruction.
- Bethlehem – A biblical reference to the birthplace of Jesus Christ, used metaphorically in the poem to represent a place of significance and potential upheaval.
- slouches – Moves in a slow, lazy, or ungainly manner.
- cradle – A small bed for a baby, typically mounted on rockers; metaphorically refers to a place of origin or beginning.
- Twenty centuries – Refers to the passage of two thousand years since the birth of Christ, invoking a sense of historical perspective and the enduring nature of human struggles.
Prose
Semester I
- An Astrologer’s Day – R K Narayan
- The Swami and Mother- Worship – Sister Nivedita
- Amarnath – Sister Nivedita
Semester II
- The Garden Party- Katherine Mansfield
- Alias Jimmy Valentine- o’ Henry
- Of Studies – Francis Bacon
- Nobel Lecture – Mother Teresa
Verse
Semester I
- Composed Upon Westminster Bridge- William Wordsworth
- The Bangle Sellers – Sarojini Naidu
- The Second Coming – W B Yeats
Semester II
Rapid Reader
Semester I
Semester II
