{"id":86005,"date":"2025-09-18T10:01:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-18T09:01:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=86005"},"modified":"2025-09-18T10:01:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-18T09:01:08","slug":"the-centre-cannot-hold","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2025\/09\/18\/the-centre-cannot-hold\/","title":{"rendered":"The centre cannot hold"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This came to mind this morning:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Dominic West reads &quot;The Second Coming&quot; by WB Yeats | A Fanatic Heart: Geldof on Yeats,  RTE One\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/QI40j17EFbI?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>The Second Coming<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>W. B. Yeats<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>1865 \u20131939<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Turning and turning in the widening gyre<br \/>\nThe falcon cannot hear the falconer;<br \/>\nThings fall apart; the centre cannot hold;<br \/>\nMere anarchy is loosed upon the world,<br \/>\nThe blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere<br \/>\nThe ceremony of innocence is drowned;<br \/>\nThe best lack all conviction, while the worst<br \/>\nAre full of passionate intensity.<\/p>\n<p>Surely some revelation is at hand;<br \/>\nSurely the Second Coming is at hand.<br \/>\nThe Second Coming! Hardly are those words out<br \/>\nWhen a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi<br \/>\nTroubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert<br \/>\nA shape with lion body and the head of a man,<br \/>\nA gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,<br \/>\nIs moving its slow thighs, while all about it<br \/>\nReel shadows of the indignant desert birds.<br \/>\nThe darkness drops again; but now I know<br \/>\nThat twenty centuries of stony sleep<br \/>\nWere vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,<br \/>\nAnd what rough beast, its hour come round at last,<br \/>\nSlouches towards Bethlehem to be born?<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>Source: https:\/\/poets.org\/poem\/second-coming<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This came to mind this morning: The Second Coming W. B. Yeats 1865 \u20131939 Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear<br \/><a class=\"moretag\" href=\"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2025\/09\/18\/the-centre-cannot-hold\/\"><em> Read the full article&#8230;<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[106],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-86005","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86005","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86005"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86005\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":86008,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86005\/revisions\/86008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}