The Second Coming Analysis

            This poem is meant to be an interpretation of the end of civilization, and with it, the promised Second Coming. When the event doesn’t occur, the narrator is drawn towards the description of the Sphinx, another supposed savior of an ancient civilization that was lost to history. The Sphinx, in turn, leads him to Bethlehem, the birthplace of Christ.

            There appears to be no discernable rhyme scheme. The poem is in extremely difficult to discern iambic pentameter (blank verse), but is almost at the point of freeverse.

“The ceremony of innocence is drowned”

~ Implies it didn’t exist in the first place.

~ Dark tone conveyed, specific death “drowned”

“Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world”

  

~ Sole use of anarchy, implies brute force

~ Loosed implies left off its leash