Elder Marion D. Hanks, Part One - Yeats Slouching Toward...Faith?

 If you'd like to read Part Two, Part Three, Part Four or Part Five of this series, find the link and click.

The world is finally thawing, and I'm looking today at the talk,"Joy Through Christ" by Elder Marion D. Hanks. 

Elder Hanks has gifted us in this talk with a large number of literature and cultural references in his talk about finding joy, and where to best find it. I'm joyfully plowing through this one, and especially the poem today, one of my all-time favorites:

 

The Quote 

“Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the center cannot hold.

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.”

Elder Hanks uses this segment of the poem to describe conditions in a world where people lack a stable center in their lives, and 'things fall apart' when there's no stable center.

I've experienced that. I daresay many, if not most, people have experienced that at one or more points in their lives. Anyone who's ever been online probably feels that last part, especially in our current political climate.

William Butler Yeats, the husband of my ninth cousin three times removed Bertha Georgie Hyde-Lees, left behind a profound body of work, full of symbolism that comes close to Biblical symbolism in some ways. Yeats is to be felt almost as much as he is to be read.

 Here in this quote above we have the falcon and the falconer - what I really love is the second stanza of this poem, The Second Coming. Honestly, I can only guess at his meaning, but I know what it resembles to my mind:

 

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?

 

 

 

A lot of what the world sees is different than what we see. Some of the words in this poem are defined differently by the world than those of us in the gospel will define them. We can often see and feel different things. 

 

That's okay. Sometimes poets and writers and singers and movie-makers arrive at insights not even they understand, but it gives me great insights nonetheless.

 

What insights do you get from this poem? Feel your insights first before looking for others - that's why I haven't given my opinion here, because I didn't want to taint yours with mine. But then, try looking up what others have experienced. We can get into quite a conversation about Yeats over the centuries.

 

Some of my other favorite poems of Yeats include "The Tower" and "The Stolen Child".