blood-dimmed tide

[ladorada]

I am trying to understand a line in a poem by W.B.Yeats, Second Coming. I can't quite get the meaning of 'the blood-dimmed tide'. What kind of tide is this?

This is the beginning of the poem:

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

[pingping]

I think it means that the tide is about turn (metaphorically) and bringing with it a bloody battle.

don't quote me on that though!

[mightywease]

I took it that the tide - a tide of violence - has been held back but now it has been let loose and the elements of the tide i.e. blood, violence and anarchy, will soon 'drown' the world.

Also 'blood-dimmed' gives me a sense of coming darkness i.e. when night is falling and the setting sun reflecting on water gives it a reddish glow

[Clanad]

To even begin a coherent discussion of Yeat's poem, one should first read his book A Vision, along with an historical understanding of his involvement with the Theosophical Society. Graham Hough, one of Yeats' biographer's states "...Graham Hough is of the opinion that �again and again we find that obscure, puzzling and apparently original elements in Yeats�s esoteric doctrine, even towards the end of his life, turn out to have their roots in the Theosophical teaching he first encountered in his early twenties�..."
This exposure and the Sitz in Leben (1920's) of this work certainly examines his spiritual reflections, in my opinion. Your particular phrase is difficult to isolate for analysis, but, as with much of the rest of the short work, has overtly religious conotations. The "blood-dimmed" quality has a dual source... the impact of all that occurred in the recent Great War as well as Yeats' belief that religious structures, especially Christian vs Pagan went through cyclical changes ("gyres") that were difficult to grasp.
The Irish Rebellion and subsequent bloodshed also plays a part in the construction of the poem. Although not an ardent Republican, Yeats' infatuation with Maud Gonne influenced his work for most of his life, (see especially, Easter 1916)and I believe, is reflected in the piece as well.
At any rate, the line in question has as its basis the sometimes bloody scenes found in The New Testament Book of The Revelation of St John the Divine and their connections to the passing away of old orders and the arrival of the new... Other's will disagree, but that's the true value of Yeats, again, in my opinion...