would you consider this poem blasphemous?

Question

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.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in the sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

It's Yeat's "Second Coming." Some girl in my poetry class refused to participate today because she said it was a blasphemous poem and she would be sinning by helping to read it aloud and discuss it.

sith: she did. she got a nice big 'F' for participation today :)

Answer 1

She's lame.

Although she isn't of the same magnitude, I put her in a similar category to those Muslims who wanted to kill Rushdie for his "Satanic Verses".

If she's offended by that, she needs to transfer to Bible College.

Answer 2

Sorry, but I don't see it as blasphemous. And as a teacher, I'm glad she got a failing participation grade. As a Christian I am told that while I am not of this world, I must live in this world. And as such, there will be things that we willed be called upon to do, such as participate in class with an open mind! And to read a poem goes against nothing that we are taught and we believe. I have the same problem with parents who want their children removed during the discussion of evolution. Once again.. open mind!! Learn all you can, it can only make your faith stronger!!

Answer 3

She should get an F. Its a great poem. Does she know what it is referring to? It has nothing to do with the second coming of Jesus.