The Speaker is an unnamed first-person narrator who watches a declining, violent world lose its moral center. Functioning as a visionary, he anticipates an impending apocalyptic future and experiences a disturbing psychic image from the universal consciousness known as Spiritus Mundi. He believes history moves in cyclical patterns and dreads the arrival of a new historical phase defined by violence.

The Rough Beast is a monstrous creature with the body of a lion and the head of a man, symbolizing a terrifying new era in history. Roused after twenty centuries of stony sleep, the creature possesses a blank, merciless gaze resembling the sun. It moves slowly but deliberately toward Bethlehem to be born, threatening to replace the historical age of innocence with an age of violence and evil.

The Falconer is the traditional handler and master of the falcon. Within the allegory of the poem, he represents a lost moral authority or a former center of control that contemporary society no longer acknowledges or obeys.

The Falcon is a bird of prey flying in an ever-widening circle away from its master. The creature serves as a symbol for the wayward nature of society, which has lost its direction and connection to any guiding authority.