For hundreds of centuries, man has pondered what revelations or spiritual awakenings will occur in future's time. Poet William Yeats, has written, "The Second Coming," which foretells how the Second Coming brings horror and repression to the world. Yeats takes into speculation that the future will certainly bring further darkness than is already present in the current world. He employs various symbols and allusions to assert his claims of the world's ultimate demise. The purpose of these symbols and allusions make it possible to fully understand Yeats's point of view of the fall of our present civilization and the rise of a new civilization with a gloomy future.

One of Yeats' major symbols, the "widening gyre", is used systemically to show the destruction of the current civilization and the emergence of a new one. The continuing "turning and turning" of the gyre...