- gyrenounChapter 1 →
A widening spiral or circular motion; in Yeats's system, a gyre is a spinning cone-shape used to describe the rise and fall of historical ages and civilizations.
“Turning and turning in the widening gyre / The falcon cannot hear the falconer”
- falconernounChapter 1 →
A person who trains and flies falcons for hunting; here, the controlling authority whose commands the falcon can no longer hear as it spirals away.
“Turning and turning in the widening gyre / The falcon cannot hear the falconer”
- mereadjectiveChapter 1 →
Nothing but; used here to stress that what is unleashed is pure, unqualified anarchy — not softened or mixed with anything else.
“Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world”
- anarchynounChapter 1 →
A state of total disorder and lawlessness in which all governing authority has collapsed and chaos rules.
“Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world”
- loosedverbChapter 1 →
Released or set free, especially something dangerous or destructive that was previously held in check.
“Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world”
- ceremony of innocencephraseChapter 1 →
The rituals, customs, and social graces that protect civilized, gentle life; the phrase suggests that decency and order are being destroyed along with everything else.
“The ceremony of innocence is drowned”
- convictionnounChapter 1 →
A firm, deeply held belief or moral certainty that drives a person to act; here, the quality the best people dangerously lack.
“The best lack all conviction, while the worst / Are full of passionate intensity”
- passionate intensityphraseChapter 1 →
Extreme, fervent zeal and emotional force; used here to describe the dangerous energy that fills the worst people while the best remain passive.
“The best lack all conviction, while the worst / Are full of passionate intensity”
- revelationnounChapter 1 →
A dramatic, often divine disclosure of something hidden or momentous; here it refers to a world-changing event or vision that feels destined to arrive.
“Surely some revelation is at hand”
- Second ComingnounChapter 1 →
In Christian belief, the prophesied return of Christ at the end of time; Yeats uses the phrase but twists it to announce the arrival of something monstrous instead.
“Surely the Second Coming is at hand”
- Spiritus MundinounChapter 1 →
Latin for 'Spirit of the World'; Yeats's term for a shared reservoir of universal human memory and images from which poets and visionaries draw symbolic visions.
- pitilessadjectiveChapter 1 →
Showing absolutely no mercy, sympathy, or compassion; utterly cold and indifferent to suffering.
“A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun”
- indignantadjectiveChapter 1 →
Feeling or showing anger at something perceived as unjust or threatening; here describing the circling desert birds whose agitation mirrors the disturbed world.
“Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds”
- vexedverbChapter 1 →
Troubled, disturbed, or agitated; here used to describe how the darkness of the vision is stirred and unsettled.
“The darkness drops again but now I know / That twenty centuries of stony sleep / Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle”
- stony sleepphraseChapter 1 →
A deep, hard, death-like dormancy; Yeats uses it to describe the long dormant pagan age that was violently awakened by the birth of Christ.
“That twenty centuries of stony sleep / Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle”
- slouchesverbChapter 1 →
Moves in a heavy, shambling, ungainly way; the word makes the beast's approach feel brutish, unstoppable, and deeply wrong.
“And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, / Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?”
The Second ComingShort story by W. B. Yeats