A falcon spirals outward in an ever-widening gyre, opening the poem.

The falcon loses all contact with the falconer and can no longer hear its master.

The speaker proclaims that things fall apart and the centre cannot hold.

Anarchy is loosed upon the world, unleashing chaos everywhere.

A blood-dimmed tide is loosed, spreading death and destruction across the world.

The ceremony of innocence is entirely drowned by violence and bloodshed.

The best people lack all conviction while the worst burn with passionate intensity.

The speaker asserts that a revelation is surely at hand.

The speaker names the Second Coming specifically as the revelation now taking place.

A vast image from Spiritus Mundi suddenly intrudes and troubles the speaker's sight.

A creature with a lion's body and a man's head appears somewhere in desert sands.

The sphinx moves its slow thighs across the desert with steady purpose.

Shadows of indignant desert birds reel in circles around the moving sphinx.

The vision ends as darkness drops again before the speaker's eyes.

The rough beast slouches toward Bethlehem to be born as the poem closes.

The poem opens with a falcon spiraling outward in a widening gyre, having lost all contact with its master the falconer. The speaker then catalogues the collapse of the world: anarchy is loosed, a blood-dimmed tide overwhelms everything, and innocence is drowned while good people do nothing and the wicked act freely. The speaker concludes that a revelation is imminent and names it the Second Coming. Immediately, a vision from Spiritus Mundi intrudes on the speaker's sight, showing a sphinx-like creature with a lion's body and a human head moving through desert sands while birds wheel around it. The vision fades, but the speaker understands that twenty centuries of sleep have been broken, and the poem closes with the rough beast slouching toward Bethlehem to be born.

The core images and proclamations of the poem.

The word 'turning' is repeated twice in the first line, creating a dizzying spiral effect.

The broken link between falcon and falconer signals a severing of all societal control.

Anarchy is described as 'loosed,' suggesting a previously restrained force finally set free.

The blood-dimmed tide and anarchy are both 'loosed,' each triggering the catastrophe after it.

The drowning of innocence's ceremony signals the erasure of even the appearance of goodness.

Good people's passive silence is shown to allow the worst to act with unchecked ambition.

The speaker uses 'surely' twice in succession, building an insistent rhythm toward prophecy.

The phrase 'at hand' is repeated at the close of two consecutive lines, sealing the prediction.

The Spiritus Mundi vision begins troubling the speaker's sight before its subject becomes clear.

The desert is specifically established as the setting from which the approaching sphinx emerges.

The sphinx's gaze is described as blank and pitiless, merciless as the desert sun.

The sphinx moves its slow thighs while desert birds circle in agitation around it.

The speaker realizes twenty centuries of history have constituted a period of stony sleep.

A rocking cradle is identified as the force that vexed the long centuries of sleep into nightmare.

The speaker ends the poem with an open question, never resolving what the beast truly is.

The poem's opening gyre image is built on the word 'turning' repeated twice, creating a dizzying sense of acceleration as the falcon's spiral widens beyond control. The world's collapse is catalogued through linked causes and effects: anarchy is 'loosed,' and that loosening begets the blood-dimmed tide, each catastrophe triggering the next. The silence of virtuous people is shown to be as dangerous as the wickedness of those who act with ambition. When the speaker invokes the Second Coming, the word 'surely' is repeated twice and 'at hand' is echoed twice, building rhythmic certainty before the Spiritus Mundi vision begins. The vision establishes the sphinx in its desert setting, describes its pitiless gaze, and places circling birds around it before the speaker recovers from the intrusion. The poem closes not with a declaration but with a question, leaving the beast's full identity unresolved.

The supporting details and layered observations within the poem.

The widening gyre image signals that society is circling toward the edge of a new historic phase.

The falconer's complete loss of control over the falcon marks an irreversible break from order.

The short, punchy rhythm of 'the centre cannot hold' crystallizes the entire world's collapse.

The passive good and the passionate wicked are both identified as defining this broken age.

The speaker pivots decisively from describing present chaos to prophesying what that chaos means.

The speaker shifts from vague 'some revelation' to naming the Second Coming with full conviction.

Invoking the Second Coming immediately triggers an unbidden vision from the universal spirit world.

The beast's hybrid nature—lion body, human head—marks it as a creature outside all natural order.

The sphinx's vacant and merciless expression reveals it possesses no human feeling or conscience.

The sphinx's slow but deliberate movement signals that its arrival is inevitable and unstoppable.

The vision abruptly ends, leaving the speaker permanently changed by what was briefly witnessed.

The speaker realizes that two thousand years of apparent calm were only a deceptive stony sleep.

The rocking cradle is identified as the specific agent that disturbed the long dormant peace.

The beast's destination—Bethlehem, birthplace of Christ—reveals a direct inversion of the sacred birth.

The speaker's final question confesses that even the prophet cannot fully know what the beast brings.

The poem's opening gyre image quietly announces that society is circling toward the edge of a historic new cycle, though the full weight of this is not yet revealed. The speaker moves from cataloguing chaos to identifying its moral root: the inaction of the virtuous is just as dangerous as the aggression of the wicked. A decisive shift occurs when the speaker pivots from describing the present to prophesying the future, moving from vague 'some revelation' to the explicit naming of the Second Coming. The very act of speaking the Second Coming immediately triggers an uninvited vision from the collective spirit world, revealing a hybrid beast outside natural order. The vision fades abruptly, and the speaker's understanding is transformed: the apparent peace of two thousand years was only a dormant sleep, and the beast's hour has finally arrived. The poem ends with the beast moving toward Bethlehem—Christ's birthplace—inverting the sacred birth, while the speaker admits in a final question that the beast's full meaning remains beyond knowing.