Was William Butler Yeats a Prophet? Perhaps so...

[MineralMan]

Surely, he was thinking of 2017 and the horror of Donald Trump as he wrote...

THE SECOND COMING

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.

The darkness drops again but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

[yallerdawg]

1. This empty vessel was filled with hate.

Who knew this was what made America great?

Historians and students of American history?

My wife says this is the anti-Christ. Call him out at your peril. Abandon all hope.

I think he's just another dick. Just one of 62,000,000!

[lutherj]

2. This poem, and especially the last two lines, has been going around in my head for the last month.

"And what rough (orange) beast, its hour come round at last . . ."

[Historic NY]

3. I've pay my repects to Yeats, @ Drumcliff

"Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world"

[First Speaker]

4. This is a truly great, and truly prophetic, poem...

...Yeats was the 20th century Shakespeare, in my opinion...he wrote this poem at the end of World War One, in response to that idiot slaughter, the Irish civil war, and the beginnings of Bolshevism...later, he acknowledged that it also prophesied the rise of Fascism. Its relevance continues unabated, alas...

[Hekate]

5. A prophet, a poet, a visionary, a mystic.... One of the best of all time

Thanks, MM

[tavernier]

6. My preferred prophet is Seuss

The Lorax was Dr. Seuss' personal favorite of his books. He was able to create a story addressing economic and environmental issues without it being dull. "The Lorax," he once explained, "came out of me being angry. In The Lorax I was out to attack what I think are evil things and let the chips fall where they might."
-----

Beasts and darkness and wind shadows don't frighten or sadden me as much as a civilization that puts greed before survival.

[elleng]

7. Maybe, but WISE, surely;

able to see and understand, without blinders.

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.