Tuesday, December 12, 2023

Apocalypse

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.

This snippet of poetry is the first stanza in William Butler Yeat's famous poem "The Second Coming". Written in 1919 as a response to the horror of World War I, it is a bleak, dark poem with absolutely no optimism for the human race at all. Looking at the numerous news reports of thousands of people demonstrating in favor of the Hamas terrorists, who butchered, tortured, raped and killed thousands of innocent people, I am inclined to agree.