Slouching Toward Bethlehem Lyrics - Mitchell Joni

(based on a poem by W.B. Yeats) 

Turning and turning 

Within the widening gyre 

The falcon cannot hear the falconer 

Things fall apart 

The center cannot hold 

And a blood dimmed tide 

Is loosed upon the world 

Nothing is sacred 

The ceremony sinks 

Innocence is drowned 

In anarchy 

The best lack conviction 

Given some time to think 

And the worst are full of passion 

Without mercy 

Surely some revelation is at hand 

Surely it's the second coming 

And the wrath has finally taken form 

For what is this rough beast 

Its hour come at last 

Slouching towards Bethlehem to be born 

Slouching towards Bethlehem to be born 

Hoping and hoping 

As if by my weak faith 

The spirit of this world 

Would heal and rise 

Vast are the shadows 

That straddle and strafe 

And struggle in the darkness 

Troubling my eyes 

Shaped like a lion 

It has the head of a man 

With a gaze as blank 

And pitiless as the sun 

And it's moving its slow thighs 

Across the desert sands 

Through dark indignant 

Reeling falcons 

Surely some revelation is at hand 

Surely it's the second coming 

And the wrath has finally taken form 

For what is this rough beast 

Its hour come at last 

Slouching towards Bethlehem to be born 

Slouching towards Bethlehem to be born 

Raging and raging 

It rises from the deep 

Opening its eyes 

After twenty centuries 

Vexed to a nightmare 

Out of a stony sleep 

By a rocking cradle 

By the Sea of Galilee 

Surely some revelation is at hand 

Surely it's the second coming 

And the wrath has finally taken form 

For what is this rough beast 

Its hour come at last 

Slouching towards Bethlehem to be born 

Slouching towards Bethlehem to be born 

1988, 1991 Crazy Crow Music BMI