Saturday, August 05, 2006

My Favorite Poems

Irish poet William Butler Yeats is definitely on my list of poet geniuses. I have a CD of his reading of the poem that reinforced my belief that poetry should be performed. I wish I had the tech skill to include it as an audioblog, but I don't so here is the written poem. Appropos in these dark days.


THE SECOND COMING

By W.B. Yeats

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 the sands of the desert

A shape with a lion body and the head of a man,

A gaze blank and pitiless in 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?

2 comments:

Marcail said...

No, but it sounds like fun. I'd like to add Yeat's reading. I'll see if the phone will pick it up.

I listened to your test. Did you set up a separate audioblog?

Flood said...

No. You can audioblog right from the one you have. Just follow the three easy steps.