In "Two Songs," Yeats draws parallels between the religious beliefs of the ancient world and those of his own time. He puts forward the idea of cycles in religion, where the same beliefs about divine figures appear from age to age, recurring in new forms. "Two Songs" opens with a reference to Dionysus, the Ancient Greek god of drama, who drove his virginal women followers --- known as Maenads --- into mad frenzies during which they tore men apart. Such a "fierce virgin" is mentioned in song one. Dionysus was the son of Zeus, the king of the gods, but was born to a human mother. He was torn apart by the Titans, only to be resurrected by Zeus. In "Two Songs," Yeats connects Dionysus and Jesus, both divine, both born to human mothers and both resurrected.
The idea of sacrifice resonates through the poem. Yeats suggests that sacrifices, too, occur in a repeated cycle, from the death of Dionysus and the sacrifice of soldiers at the siege of Troy, to the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. The sacrifice of Jesus is repeatedly recalled. In verse one, a virgin holds the god's beating heart, recalling the image of the Sacred Heart of Jesus traditional to the Catholic Church. The lines about the Roman Empire standing "appalled" as it drops "the reins of peace and war" may refer to the soldiers who cast lots for the robe of Jesus, and their Centurion's fearful reaction to the crucifixion. The image of Jesus turbulently breaking out of a room in song two suggests the moment of his resurrection.
Just as ideas about religion and sacrifice follow a cycle, Yeats suggests, there is a similar cycle in poetry. In his Nobel speech, Yeats connects the Irish tradition of story-telling to the legends of the Ancient Greeks, familiar from poems such as Homer's Iliad. The language and way of expression, he argues, is markedly similar. This idea is explored further in "Two Songs," with the mention of other Greek poetic legends: the siege of Troy, the voyage of the ship "Argo" to find the Golden Fleece, and the Muses who inspire poetry by singing for the gods. In verse two, Yeats imagines "another Argo," a new version of an old legend.
Yeats traces the same pattern of endless recurrence in historical events. He pictures a turbulent world, filled with images of mutilation and death, where empires fall in a repeated cycle of decline. Darkness dominates: the virgin calls out of it, human thought "darkens" and there is a "formless darkness" after the death of Jesus. A heart is torn out, crows feed on a battlefield's dead and there is the "odour of blood." The Muses sing of "Magnus Annus," which is Latin for Great Year. This is a reference to the Greek myth of a Golden Age, when everyone lived happy and free, but which was followed by "fallen" ages of Silver, Bronze and Iron. The sweep of the poem suggests the decay of great cultures: the fall of Troy, the collapse of the Babylonian and Roman Empires, and the decline of the "Platonic" learning and "Doric" culture of the Ancient Greeks themselves.
The poem closes with all human achievement and strength exhausted. Yeats draws together his ideas about history, poetry, sacrifice and religion to suggest that everything we do or care about is subject to the same inevitable cycle of decline, lasting only "a moment or a day." He returns to the image of the heart, this time a human heart, not a god's. He describes this heart as "resinous," like the center of a flaming torch. Our hearts, he suggests, are filled with desires that will flare brilliantly, before burning themselves out.