The Second Coming - William Butler Yeats

I'm not a very religious person, nor do I know a lot about the Christian religion, but I do like the concept of this poem. I feel like it's a plea, but a very strategic plea. I have to have sympathy for Yeats here...something his whole life revolved on, something so familiar, something so important to him has slowly but surely started to dissolve. The innocence he once knew that branched from this religion is now shattered. It's almost like a poem about death, and losing somebody you love dearly. Somebody who was practically the backbone of your existence...is this how somebody feels when they lose a parent? I've always felt like if you lose your parents, you lose the one last hope you ever had if you made a mistake or needed guidance. Yeats similarly experiences the loss of something that guided him and many others in the right direction, but hopes for a miracle. He writes about seeing the second coming of a prophet.

The poem is simple. It doesn't carry any confusing overtones - Yeats has lost something and wants it back. Even the biggest dummy in religion can figure this one out (I hope). I'm not very distraught about what he writes even though I feel sympathy for him, because he leaves his reader with hope in the second stanza. He sees the new prophet walking through the desert and making a comeback. To me it's a very colorful poem - the imagery he uses, especially in the second stanza is extremely colorful and vivid. I can picture the lion-man walking through the desert on his way to Bethlehem. Like Hopkins, Yeats's poetry is very flouous - you don't stutter or hesitate at any part. It's very prose-ish.