Lakhasly

is a short poem that blisters with apocalyptic ominousness.Its first line, "turning and turning in the widening gyre," locates the whole poem inside an expanding gyre, or spiral, making it clear that something is moving and changing, and the world will never be the same. The poem's second line zooms from that gigantic, unclear beginning straight into a very specific and symbolic image--the falcon, which has lost touch with its falconer. This line essentially implies that the "falcon," which likely represents humanity, has become detached from its "falconer," some sort of controller or holder that once kept it in order.Lines three through six describe collapse and turmoil, a dissolution of order and a rising tide of violence and revolution without cause.In the seventh and eighth lines, Yeats mourns that the best people have become silent and resigned to their fate, while villains are the ones in power, speaking the loudest and caring the most about their causes.Innocence and rituals celebrating purity have been destroyed, and a wave of violence is washing over the land, drowning everything in its path.He has taken stock of all that is going on, and he knows that certainly something large must be happening--all this chaos cannot be accidental; it must be part of an event of apocalyptic proportions.

is a short poem that blisters with apocalyptic ominousness. Its first line, "turning and turning in the widening gyre," locates the whole poem inside an expanding gyre, or spiral, making it clear that something is moving and changing, and the world will never be the same.

The poem's second line zooms from that gigantic, unclear beginning straight into a very specific and symbolic image—the falcon, which has lost touch with its falconer. This line essentially implies that the "falcon," which likely represents humanity, has become detached from its "falconer," some sort of controller or holder that once kept it in order. Now the falcon is roaming free.

Lines three through six describe collapse and turmoil, a dissolution of order and a rising tide of violence and revolution without cause. Innocence and rituals celebrating purity have been destroyed, and a wave of violence is washing over the land, drowning everything in its path. In the seventh and eighth lines, Yeats mourns that the best people have become silent and resigned to their fate, while villains are the ones in power, speaking the loudest and caring the most about their causes.

In the second half of the poem, Yeats looks beyond the present into the future. He has taken stock of all that is going on, and he knows that certainly something large must be happening—all this chaos cannot be accidental; it must be part of an event of apocalyptic proportions. This must be a Second Coming, he thinks—this must be an apocalypse like the one predicted in the Bible's Book of Revelations.

Something about the words "The Second Coming" sends the speaker spiraling into a sort of dream state. He falls out of his physical self and gains contact with the Spiritus Mundi, or the world-soul or collective consciousness, which Yeats believed each person has access to in some part of his mind. This collective consciousness is full of strange, ancient, mythological images, and a few mythological archetypes appear to Yeats in this surreal dream space. He sees a desert in his mind's eye, and observes a lion with a man's head, also known as a sphinx, moving slowly around the desert, while angry, fearful birds flutter around, casting shadows on the sand.

Then Yeats finds himself suddenly back in his own body and mind, out of this surreal, dreamlike scene. But he has seen something he cannot forget: something is happening now, something that will shake the world to its foundation. The world has been sleeping for two thousand years, he thinks, but something is brewing, something terrible, and it is on its way, slouching towards Bethlehem to be born.