The Second Coming (Modern Translation)

Translated by Asa Montreaux

Written by William Butler Yeats

Spinning and spinning in a widening storm,

The falcon no longer hears the call.

Everything’s breaking—the center is gone—

And chaos spills across it all.

The tide is red, thick with blood and fear,

And innocence sinks out of sight.

The best stand silent, drained and unclear,

While the worst burn with furious light.

Surely something vast is near—

A sign, a shift, a truth unclear.

The Second Coming—yes, it stirs—

But as the words escape my lips,

🦉 Switch to original version.

A shadow rises in my mind,

Born from the world’s collective dream:

Somewhere in desert dust and heat,

A figure moves—part lion, part man—

Its stare is blind, as bright as noon,

And slow it moves, its limbs like stone,

While overhead, in crazed complaint,

The circling birds shriek and moan.

The dark falls back—but I have seen

What sleeps beneath these twenty years

Of hollow peace, now cracked by screams—

A cradle shakes, and something stirs.

And what rough creature, long denied,

Now slouches toward the light—to rise?