W.B. Yeats "The Second Coming" (A favorite poem that's apropos for our times)
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.
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,
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?
- W.B. Yeats, 1919
You might enjoy knowing that prog metal supergroup Redemption adapted Yeats in "Slouching Towards Bethlehem" in 2016 for their album The Art of Loss.
That's pretty cool. Thanks man!
You're welcome. The whole album is excellent if you're interested in stoicism; it's basically stoic metal except for their cover of the Who's "Love Reign O'er Me".
Definitely a fan of Stoicism. I enjoy Marcus Aurelius' Meditations and return to them periodically. Amazingly approachable text given when it was written.
I've never heard of Stoic music before, so that's an interesting concept. To be transparent, I'm not much of a metalhead but I really do appreciate you sharing that track :)