Poems of W.B. Yeats: The Rose
The Second Coming (written in the year 1919, after the First World War)
1. What image makes us believe that the world is chaotic, harsh, and disconnected?
2. What makes it so?
3. Why does the poet say, “Surely the second coming is at hand?”
4. What happens when those words are “hardly out” of his mouth?
5. What is this evil, monstrous force like?
6. What are the smaller desert birds like?
7. How long has the baby Jesus been asleep in the cradle?
8. What has been the real force on the planet during all this time?