4. The Byzantium Poems; Apocalypse in ‘The Secret Rose’ and ‘The Second Coming’

Fusing quest with the theme of reincarnation, a process that turn out be both spiritual and erotic, we move with the help of Blake, first from Fairyland to Byzantium, then, via the alchemical, Rosicrucian and Blakean apocalypse of ‘The Secret Rose,’ to the bestial apocalypse of ‘The Second Coming.’ Drawing attention to the grammatical and tonal conflict between oracular assertion and troubled questioning in the final movement of ‘The Second Coming,’ emphasis is placed on the poem’s mystery, what we don’t ‘know,’ as opposed to the speaker’s ‘now I know,’ and the certitude of Yeats’s own note to the poem.