Write the summary and explanation of the poem entitled "The

Write the summary and explanation of the poem entitled “The Second Coming”.

Ans.

Summary of the Poem

The World is in a mess. It is in a state of chaos as everything and everyone are following divergent paths. None seems to care a damn for the other. Even the falcon has refused to obey its master, the falconer who took great pains to rear and train it. This signifies-indiscipline, anarchy and destruction: Irrational streams of blood have engulfed virtue and innocence. Like the Deluge, the bloody wars of modern times will destroy the world completely. The present state of affairs is likely to worsen further, seeing that the good have no courage to defend their principles whereas the wicked are full of fire and fury. Life has drained away from the top but in lower spheres. in the worst there is a crude vitality.

The contemporary barbarism is an indication of the oncoming of an evil incarnate. The “Second Coming” is in the offing but it is not of the benign Christ as predicted in the Bible, it is of a Savage God. The Christian era after twenty centuries of dominance has run its course. Now, it is time for a new age an age different from, if not antithetical to the Christian age. The very thought of revelation’ and the ‘Second Coming’ brings the vision of a sinister creature, with the body of a lion and the head of a man, moving about in the desert here it had lain asleep for centuries. The birds scream and fly about as this horrible creature stalks towards Bethlehem, the birth-place of Jesus, to be born.

EXPLANATIONS

1. TURNING and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart, the center 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.

Explanation with Reference to Context- This stanza has been selected from the poem The Second Coming composed by W.B. Yeats. The poet seems to see a vision. He finds the world full of vices because all good ceremonies have been lost by the human beings.

The poet loved old values, ceremonies and administration. This world is not suitable according to the desires of the poet. He is under the astonishment and looks a vision that an enlarging wheel is rotating very fast. This rotating wheel unifies everything connected with it. This wheel rotates fast and the things united with it are getting loose. The soul does not pay attention to the Great Soul. We are laying apart from the ritual ceremonies. In this situation when we do not listen the God, it is out of control now, for the wheel, to unite us. All around there is a chaotic situation in the world. A tide of impiousness and Chaos is pervading in the whole world. Our blood has become cold enough not to follow the old values. Ceremonies of innocence are drowning in this tide. The persons who are called the best ones in this world, have lost all old convictions. The worst persons in this world are full of excitement to fulfill their purposes.

Note- (i) The author was ardent lover of old values.

(ii) The poem begins abruptly.

(iii) The words falcon and Falconer’ are symbolic.

2. 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 tights, while all about it

Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.

Explanation with Reference to Context- This stanza exists in the poem The Second Coming composed by W.B. Yeats. The poet wants to see mankind under the discipline of old civilization and faith. he is afraid of the loss of faith in the world. it cannot be said that the poet has no hope to recover the mankind.

The poet makes a prophecy that some mythological change is about to take place in this world. Surely the God will come on the earth again. The very words of Second Coming’ are hopeful as well as amazing to the poet. In his vision he looks the ferocious picture of lion with man’s head having beard. This picture seems to gaze in the vast blank of amazement. Somewhere in the sands of some desert this picture troubles the imagination of the poet. He will see this picture moving under the pitiless heat of the sun in the desert. Angry birds will be hovering and dancing over this picture.

Note : (i) The poet describes British Museum and its articles.

(ii) Picture of the God given in the poem, is similar to the Vedic God. Nar Singh who came who came on the earth to kill Hiranyakashyap.

3. 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,

Stouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Explanation with Reference to Context: This is the concluding stanza of The Second Coming composed by W.B. Yeats. The poet refers here the birth of God on the earth. This will be the revelation of mankind. He appreciates the old values and faith.

The poet finds that this world is covered with the darkness of ignorance, dishonesty and loss of faith. Again, this kind of chaotic situation will sweep away when the God will take rebirth on the earth. He looks back in the last twenty centuries of the worldly people. It was a restless period. People lived in the sleep without knowing the reality. The world was a cradle of rocks and stones. Soon, God is about to come on the earth in the place of birth of the God, that he will slowly move in forwards Bethlehem in the shape of lion with man’s head.