The second coming – William Butler Yeats vs. Wise One from the East
WBY:
“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.”
Wise One:
All over the place on ever-growing itineraries
The relief worker-in-chief cannot heed counsel of the wise;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Malawi, in anarchy’s merciless arms is being strangled,
Corruption, indecision and procrastination are everywhere
Shortage of essential drugs is no longer rare;
As one time human rights defenders man the praise crew
While children wonder what became of the mother they thought they knew.
WBY:
“Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man”
Wise One:
Without doubt some sort of ‘Naija’ spell is in control
Undoubtedly the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When nightmares from the not so distant past
Haunt my sleep: come May 2014, save for divine intervention
An equally clueless and egocentric lot will besiege the nation!
WBY:
“A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born http://www.online-literature.
Wise One:
A predatory behemoth worse than what we have had before,
Is moving its slow machinery, while all about it
Fly singing congregations of equally profligate supporters.
The darkness drops again; but now I ask:
Any chance that three decades of dictatorship
Were enough to hypnotize even the unborn?
To watch powerlessly and clap hands; as impervious mediocrity,
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