The Center Cannot Hold

(Verse 1) Turning and turning in the widening spiral, the falcon cannot hear the falconer. Things fall apart and the center cannot hold. Anarchy creeps upon the world. The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, the ceremony of innocence is drowned. The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity. (Chorus) The center cannot hold; the tide is loosed, the ceremony of the soul, seduced. What rough beast, its hour come at last? The future is born; the die is cast. (Verse 2) Surely some revelation is at hand. Surely the Second Coming is at hand.... A vast image out of Spiritus Mundi troubles my sight. Somewhere in the sands of the desert, is a shape with a lion’s body and the head of a man. With a blank and pitiless gaze as the sun. Moving its slow thighs. Reeling shadows of the indignant desert birds. (Chorus) The center cannot hold; the tide is loosed, the ceremony of the soul, seduced. What rough beast, its hour come at last? The future is born; the die is cast. (Outro) The darkness drops again. Twenty centuries of stony sleep were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle. What rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born? © 2026 Akashic Flux Collective. All rights reserved.