"The Second Coming" was written in January 1919, and published in 1921 in the anthology of Michael Robartes and the Dancer. Within this poem, Yeats’ sees the contemporary violence of the struggles for Independence, and the Great War, as signs of the beginning of a new historical phase. It is clear they Yeats also sees Christian history giving way to another kind of coming, the end of which is both fearful, unknown, and the opposite to what has been. It is evident, that in Yeats writing of this poem, he has explored greatly the effects of language, imagery and verse form whilst considering change and violence at the time. Yeats has lived through much violence himself considering he lived in modern Ireland; this has led to Yeats becoming disillusioned with the brutality that went hand in hand with the Struggle of Nationalism. This links with two of Yeats’ other poems, within his poem of ‘Easter 1916’, there is a sense of scepticism alongside the commemoration of heroic self-sacrifice. In ‘An Irish airman foresees his death’ it is evident that Yeats observes the potentially tragic consequences of noble heroism and a romantic individual of a futile war. In a number of Yeats’ poems there are reflections of violence and change, but some, not like this. The title of this poem is based on a biblical reference to Christ’s coming at the end of time to judge the living and the dead (‘’They shall see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.’’ Matthew, Chapter 24, Verse 30). The Christian era has lasted for two thousand years since the birth of Christ, but according to Yeats, the era will end in a series of cataclysmic events and a new form of civilisation will replace it. The words used by Yeats in the title create a dark and apocalyptic mood, which furthermore foreshadows the images of impending disaster, violence and change to come within poem. Structurally the poem is an approximate iambic pentameter, but the meter is so free flowing, and the exceptions so recurrent, that it actually seems closer to free verse with frequent heavy stresses, ‘’The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst’’. The use of these heavy stresses underline the ongoing violence and create an advancing sense of foreboding. The rhymes in the poem are irregular, but the opening of a poem contain a few coincidental half rhymes, ‘’Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world’’ The use of irregularity here could be reflective of Yeats’ abnormal visions of a Second coming, although the use of the coincidental half rhymes could then be suggestive of how Yeats visions could also have another meaning reflective of the situations going on at the time in which the poem was written. I.e. The civil war and the disintegration of Irish society. Yeats, then to emphasize the key themes within the poem, use enjambment a number of times, ‘’Turning and turning in the widening gyre the falcon cannot hear the falconer’’