Yeats' "The Second Coming": gyres and the prophetic cycle of the Church

 "The Second Coming" by William Butler Yeats, followed by analysis

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?" "

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For those who are interested, the "widening gyre" here involves the way that an organisation which begins headed in one direction ends up -- by degrees, like a frog boiling in water -- headed in the opposite direction. At the beginning of the gyre, the falcon can hear the falconer; at the end of the gyre, the falcon cannot hear the falconer and is, essentially, a falcon only in name.

The poem is apt to come across very cryptically to people unaware of the influence that Swedenborg specifically and the gyres generally had on the poem. For the whole point of applying the gyres to a poem abrim with Christian symbolism involves putting the non-recognition by the Jewish Church of its own Messiah during the 1st Coming and the non-recognition by the Christian Church of its own Messiah during the 2nd Coming into context.

The "indignant desert birds" specifically involve the false understandings ("shadows" and "birds") which gradually separate the falcon from recognising/hearing the falconer. They are in the "desert" because the lady mentioned in Revelation is in the desert; and they are indignant because true talk of the falconer seems like blasphemy to those who have ceased to be a falcon except, as mentioned, in name.

To the Jewish Church, Christ/Christianity was a "rough beast", something they looked down upon and considered ignorant in relation to themselves. For the Christian Church, likewise, acknowledging the actual coming of the falconer is something they look down upon and consider ignorant in relation to themselves. When the falcon cannot recognise the falconer, the pseudo-falcon expects that falconer to conquer the Earth like some kind of Napoleon or Alexander. That is what the Jewish Church believed, that their Moshiach would conquer and rule the whole Earth. Similarly, that is what the Christian Church believes, that Jesus will very literally and obviously conquer and rule the whole Earth. In this regard, consider Psalms 119:126 in relation to "Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world":

"It is time for thee, Lord, to work: for they have made void thy law."

When they have made void thy law, they have lost contact with their original reason for existing, their original beliefs and practices: the widening gyre, "Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world". That is why Jesus came into the world the 1st time, exactly on schedule. And that is why He came into the world the 2nd time, exactly on schedule. The Christian Church and the Jewish Church see only a "rough beast"; but that "rough beast" is the ruler of the universe, and His falcons know their falconer; His sheep know His voice.

Isaiah 21:11-12 - King James Version <11> The burden of Dumah. He calleth to me out of Seir, Watchman, what of the night? Watchman, what of the night? <12> The watchman said, The morning cometh, and also the night: if ye will enquire, enquire ye: return, come.