W.B. Yeats wrote "The Second Coming" in 1919. You probably know the famous line about how things fall apart. Most people actually get the title of the poem confused with the title of Chinua Achebe's legendary novel, which borrowed the phrase decades later. But let’s be real: Yeats wasn't just writing a catchy hook for future novelists. He was watching the world bleed. The Great War had just ended, the Russian Revolution was tearing through the East, and his own home in Ireland was a powder keg of political violence. It felt like the end of the world. Honestly, reading it today, it still feels that way sometimes.
The poem isn't just a literary classic. It’s a vibe. A dark, terrifying, "everything is broken" vibe. When Yeats wrote that "things fall apart; the centre cannot hold," he was describing a visceral sense of entropy. You’ve felt it. That moment where the news cycle feels too fast, the politics too fractured, and the social fabric seems to be unspooling in real-time. That’s the "widening gyre."
Understanding the Gyre: Yeats' Poem Things Fall Apart and the Spiral of History
Yeats had some pretty out-there ideas about how time works. He didn't see history as a straight line. He saw it as a series of interlocking cones, or "gyres." Think of two ice cream cones shoved into each other, point to point. As one era expands, the other thins out until it hits a breaking point.
In Yeats' poem things fall apart because the 2,000-year cycle of Christian civilization was, in his mind, reaching its outer limit. The falcon—representing humanity or perhaps our connection to the divine—has flown so far out that it can no longer hear the falconer. It's lost. It's disconnected. We are the falcon. We’ve drifted so far from our foundational values that the signal is dead.
The imagery here is brutal. He talks about a "blood-dimmed tide" being loosed. This isn't just poetic fluff; Yeats was looking at the literal bloodletting of World War I. He saw the "ceremony of innocence" being drowned. It’s a terrifyingly cynical take on human progress. He basically argues that as we get more "civilized," we actually just lose our grip on the things that keep us sane.
Why the "Best" Lack Conviction
One of the most quoted parts of the poem is the bit about how the "best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity." It hits hard. You see it in every political cycle. The people who are thoughtful, nuanced, and perhaps a bit hesitant are drowned out by the screamers. Yeats wasn't just complaining about his neighbors. He was observing a structural flaw in human society during times of crisis.
When things fall apart, the moderate middle collapses. The "centre" doesn't just sag; it vanishes. This leaves a vacuum. And as any physicist—or political scientist—will tell you, nature hates a vacuum. Something has to fill it. For Yeats, that "something" wasn't going to be a return to the good old days. It was going to be something much, much worse.
The Rough Beast Slouching Toward Bethlehem
The second half of the poem shifts from the abstract "falling apart" to a specific, nightmare vision. Yeats describes a shape with a lion body and the head of a man. It’s a sphinx-like creature, blank and pitiless as the sun. This is the "Second Coming," but it’s not the return of Christ that people were expecting. It’s a pagan, monstrous reversal.
- The Location: Bethlehem. The birthplace of Christ becomes the nursery for a new, "rough beast."
- The Movement: It "slouches." This is such a deliberate word choice. It’s not a noble march; it’s a slow, inevitable, heavy movement toward a destination.
- The Feeling: A sense of "stony sleep" being disturbed by "nightmare."
Critics like Richard Ellmann have pointed out that Yeats was fascinated by occultism and the cyclical nature of the soul. This poem is the ultimate expression of his "A Vision" philosophy. He believed that every 2,000 years, the world flips. The era of "peace" and "order" was being replaced by an era of "power" and "force." If you look at the rise of totalitarian regimes in the 1930s—just a decade after he wrote this—it’s hard not to think he was onto something.
Achebe vs. Yeats: The Cultural Handshake
We can't talk about this poem without mentioning Chinua Achebe. When Achebe titled his 1958 novel Things Fall Apart, he was performing a brilliant act of literary subversion. Yeats was writing from the perspective of a European tradition that felt its world ending. Achebe took that phrase and applied it to the destruction of the Igbo culture in Nigeria by British colonialism.
In Yeats' poem things fall apart because of internal entropy and cosmic cycles. In Achebe’s world, things fall apart because an external force—the very people Yeats might have considered part of "civilization"—came in and broke the center. It’s a fascinating dialogue between two giants of literature. One is mourning the loss of a European order, while the other is documenting how that same order destroyed a different one.
Is the Centre Holding Today?
It's easy to get nihilistic when you read Yeats. The poem is bleak. There is no happy ending. No hero arrives to save the day. There is only the slouching beast.
But there’s a reason this poem is the most-quoted piece of literature in times of political turmoil. It gives us a vocabulary for our anxiety. It validates the feeling that things are "out of control." Sometimes, just naming the monster makes it a little less scary. Or at least, it makes us feel like we aren't the first people to see the monster coming.
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The "widening gyre" is a reminder that stability is fragile. It’s not the default state of the world. It’s something that has to be actively maintained. When the falcon stops listening, the system fails.
Modern Interpretations and Misuses
You’ll see journalists use "the centre cannot hold" to describe everything from a stock market crash to a messy celebrity divorce. It’s become a bit of a cliché. But the core of the poem—the idea that our "innocence" is a fragile ceremony—still holds water.
The "blood-dimmed tide" isn't just about war. It’s about the loss of shared truth. When we can't agree on basic facts, the ceremony of innocence is definitely drowned. Yeats was terrified of the "mob." He feared that the masses, fueled by "passionate intensity," would destroy the intellectual and cultural achievements of the past. Whether you agree with his somewhat aristocratic fears or not, you can't deny that the "passionate intensity" of the internet age feels exactly like what he was describing.
How to Engage with the Poem Now
If you want to actually "get" this poem, don't just read it on a screen. Read it out loud. Feel the rhythm of "turning and turning in the widening gyre." Notice how the first stanza is chaotic and frantic, while the second stanza is slow, heavy, and dread-filled.
- Look for the contrasts: The "falcon" vs. the "falconer." The "cradle" vs. the "rough beast."
- Contextualize the "Beast": Research the 1918 flu pandemic. Yeats’ pregnant wife, Georgie, nearly died from it while he was writing this. The "nightmare" wasn't just political; it was personal.
- Compare the endings: Think about why Yeats ends on a question mark. "And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, / Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?" He doesn't know what's coming. Neither do we.
Actionable Insights for the Modern Reader:
- Audit your "Passionate Intensity": In a world that rewards the loudest voice, practice the "conviction" that Yeats felt the "best" were losing. It’s okay to be nuanced.
- Recognize the Gyres: When things feel like they are falling apart, look at the historical cycles. This has happened before. 1919 was a mess. 1939 was a mess. 1968 was a mess. History breathes in and out.
- Read Achebe alongside Yeats: To get the full picture of what "falling apart" means, you need both perspectives. Read the poem, then read the novel. It will change how you view power and collapse.
Yeats wasn't a prophet in the literal sense, but he was a master at capturing the "spirit of the age" (the Zeitgeist). The reason Yeats' poem things fall apart remains relevant isn't because he predicted a specific event, but because he described a specific human feeling: the terror of realization that the world we built is much more fragile than we thought.
Don't let the "rough beast" catch you off guard. Understand the cycles, watch the centre, and maybe, just maybe, try to keep the falcon within earshot of the falconer.
Next Steps for Deepening Your Understanding:
- Read "A Vision": If you want the "hard mode" version of this, dive into Yeats’ book A Vision, where he explains the geometry of the gyres in exhausting detail.
- Listen to various readings: Find a recording of Irish actor Cyril Cusack reading the poem. The cadence of an Irish accent brings out the inherent mourning in the text.
- Explore the "Irish War of Independence": Study the events in Ireland between 1919 and 1921 to see the literal "anarchy" Yeats was witnessing while he composed these lines.