William Butler Yeats

I must admit that I had trouble with Yeats. The way in which he writes sometimes throws me because I think I know what is going on, when in fact Yeats may be referring to something quite different. Such was the case when I read "The Second Coming". At first glance it looks as though Yeats is discussing the second coming of Christ. Further investigation reveals that he is talking about a different epic.

Yeats uses gyre images in this poem that resemble a tornado. Events start from a single point and then spiral out. Some events can start from the same point as another event. This is how Yeats sees history evolving. He writes about the end of an era and the beginning of a new one.

In the first stanza, we see the falcon spinning out of control:
"The falcon cannot hear the falconer;/ Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;/ Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world"
I think Yeats is trying to depict the present age. Things are currently falling apart and anarchy is spreading over the world. Things are disintegrating and madness and chaos take over as this Christian era comes to an end.

Surely, Yeats believes there is presently a second coming, but he does not think it is Christ's second coming, though he provides many Christian images when he describes a new era, "a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi", and an image approaching Bethlehem to be born.

However, this is how Yeats describes the body approaching Bethlehem:
"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"...
"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?"
Here we see an image of a beast, which I don't think signifies Christ. It seems as though the rough beast Yeats is describing is the birth of this new era, which may not necessarily be pleasant. This may be the opposite of the past Christian era as society is experiencing a turn into another century. I get the feeling from Yeats that he does not think this will necessarily be a grand time period. Using the image of the gyre, Yeats seems to think that all the bad characteristics that were present at the end of the last era will reemerge at the end of the next era too.

I read this poem several times and am still not sure I know exactly to what Yeats refers. His symbols seem so indirect to me. While I can understand the big picture, I am afraid I may be missing some the finer points Yeats is trying to make.