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?
-William Butler Yeats
Concerning Spiritus Mundi:
Definition
Spiritus Mundi is a Latin term that literally means 'world spirit.' In Spiritus Mundi, there is, according to William Butler Yeats, a universal memory and a 'muse' of sorts that provides inspiration to the poet or writer. To Yeats,Spiritus Mundi is the source of all 'images' and 'symbols,' a 'collective unconscious.' Spiritus Mundi is difficult to understand, but we will unpack it as best as we can.
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