The Second Coming (W.B. Yeats, 1919)

[Verse] Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer. [Bridge] Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, [Instrumental chorus] [Solo] [Verse] The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned. [Bridge] The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity. [Instrumental chorus] [Chorus] Surely some revelation is at hand; Surely the Second Coming is at hand. [Break] [Verse] 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. [Break] [Instrumental] [Coda] [End]