William Butler Yeats (1865- 1939) poem The Second Coming is a description of the end of the Christian Era. Yeats, in his work, A Vision, describes his belief in alternating cycles of history, Christianity being just one facet of one of the cycles. Having just witnessed the end of World War I, he's conveying his belief through the poem that the Christian cycle is over, that the other cycle, a world described in the Apocalypse, is now beginning. However, even that world will run its course, and the "beast" will "slouch towards Bethlehem" to be born and initiate a new Christian cycle.
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