William Butler Yeats
The 1st stanza of The Second Coming
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.
Yeats, (not a Christian) writing at the end of WWI and the Russian Revolution, about how 20 centuries of "of stony sleep" brought on by the Christian worldview were about to be overwhelmed and devoured by the "blood dimmed tide" and "rough beast" of violence that he saw arising in the 20th century. Given the news of late... one can't help but reflect upon Yeats' vision with a mixture of admiration and horror.
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