Yeats’ allegorical poem, written in 1919 after the culmination of the First World War and during the Anglo-Irish war of independence, captures so well our darkest apprehensions and warns us against a lapse of vigilence over all conditions and accomplishments we cherish and the consequences of such a lapse.

Why have we allowed our vigilence to lapse and with what rough best, its hour come round at last, must we now grapple?