Joni Mitchell Slouching Toward Bethlehem
(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
