Poem A Preyar for my Daughter

A Preyer for my Daughter

By W B Yeast

A Prayer for my Daughter' by William Butler Yeats talks about the writer's loved ones. It shows his anxiety and nervousness over the future prosperity and possibilities of his little girl, Anne.

Yeats composed 'A Prayer for my Daughter' in 1919, not long after his girl's introduction to the world and World War II. So the continuous disrupting feel is apparent behind the scenes and the artist's psyche. The sonnet showed up without precedent for his verse assortment, Michael Robartes and the Dancer in 1921.

 

Explore A Prayer for my Daughter

1 Summary of A Prayer for My Daughter

2 Form and Structure of A Prayer for My Daughter

3 Theme and Settings of A Prayer for My Daughter

4 Analysis of A Prayer for My Daughter

5 About W. B. Yeats

 

Summary 

 A Prayer for My Daughter

W. B. Yeats in his ten-stanza poem, ‘A Prayer for my Daughter’ questions how best to raise his daughter. Though by 1919, the war was over, in Ireland it yet turned normal. So, he ponders how she will survive the difficult times ahead, in the politically turbulent times. The poem not only expresses the helplessness of Yeats as a father but all fathers who had to walk through this situation. He wants to give his daughter a life of beauty and innocence, safety, and security. He further wants her to be well- mannered and full of humility free from intellectual hatred and being strongly opinionated. Finally, he wants her to get married into an aristocratic family which is rooted in spirituality and traditional values.

 

Form and Structure of A Prayer for My Daughter

The poem ‘A Prayer for My Daughter’, written in the lyric form containing ten eight-line stanzas.  The stanza form is the same as employed by him in ‘In memory of Major Robert Gregory’. Each stanza follows a regular rhyme scheme of “AABBCDDC”. The poem follows a metrical structure that alternates between “iambic pentameter” and “trochaic pentameter”. The poem is structured as a poet’s appeal to God and to his daughter on how he wants her to be like, as she grows up.

 

Theme and Settings of A Prayer for My Daughter

The poem ‘A Prayer for my Daughter’ portrays the theme of love and anxiety of a father, who has been blessed with a daughter. It also presents the poet’s hopes for his daughter and his expectation of her becoming a very beautiful woman, blessed with the attributes of a virtuous soul. The setting of the poem is uncertain for the poem is conceived in the mind of the poet. The speaker is the poet himself talking to his daughter. The poem is conversational and didactic in tone with varying emotions of gloom, uncertainty, hope, and fear.

 

Analysis of A Prayer for My Daughter

Stanza One

Once more the storm is howling, and half hid

Under this cradle-hood and coverlid

My child sleeps on. There is no obstacle

But Gregory’s wood and one bare hill

Whereby the haystack- and roof-levelling wind,

Bred on the Atlantic, can be stayed;

And for an hour I have walked and prayed

Because of the great gloom that is in my mind.

The Poem 'A Prayer for My Daughter' opens with the picture of the youngster resting in a support half secret by its hood. The youngster dozes honestly in the midst of the "wailing tempest" outside, however Yeats couldn't settle down because of the tempest inside. The tempest wailing represents annihilation referenced by the writer in his 'The Second Coming'. The breeze reproduced in Atlantic has no impediments with the exception of the home of Lady Gregory, alluding to the writer's patroness, and an exposed slope. The immediate effect of the breeze, significance to the power of the rest of the world, particularly on his little girl, stresses the writer. On account of this extraordinary melancholy he strolled and petitioned God for his girl to be safeguarded from the actual tempest outside and the political situation unfolding across Ireland.

 

Stanza Two

I have walked and prayed for this young child an hour

And heard the sea-wind scream upon the tower,

And under the arches of the bridge, and scream

In the elms above the flooded stream;

Imagining in excited reverie

That the future years had come,

Dancing to a frenzied drum,

Out of the murderous innocence of the sea.

In the second stanza of 'A Prayer for My Daughter', Yeats stresses over the future are additionally made sense of. He hears the ocean shouting upon the pinnacle, under the scaffold and elms over the overflowed stream. The likeness in sound word "Shout" and the "overflowed stream" represent the writer's mind-boggling tension for his little girl. Additionally, it alludes to the extraordinary flood in the Bible. Because of his eerie trepidation, he envisions the future emerging from ocean and moves to the excited drum, alluding to war and gore. In the last line, the writer utilizes mystery "lethal honesty" to differentiate the world and his little girl, which additionally reviews the pictures of "blood-darkened tide" in 'The Second Coming'.

Stanza Three

May she be granted beauty and yet not

Beauty to make a stranger’s eye distraught,

Or hers before a looking-glass, for such,

Being made beautiful overmuch,

Consider beauty a sufficient end,

Lose natural kindness and maybe

The heart-revealing intimacy

That chooses right, and never find a friend.

In the third refrain of 'A Prayer for My Daughter', Yeats petitions God for his girl to be gifted with excellence. Simultaneously, he doesn't need her excellence to distressed or makes her ward on her magnificence for everything. Further, he doesn't believe she should become glad or vain that she goes the entire day gazing at the mirror and neglects to have regular friendships. The writer suggests, a lot of excellence to be a hazardous one, that he believes that her should be sufficiently lovely to get a spouse.

 

Stanza Four

Helen being chosen found life flat and dull

And later had much trouble from a fool,

While that great Queen, that rose out of the spray,

Being fatherless could have her way

Yet chose a bandy-leggèd smith for man.

It’s certain that fine women eat

A crazy salad with their meat

Whereby the Horn of Plenty is undone.

In refrain four of 'A Prayer for My Daughter', Yeats validates his view on how unreasonable excellence has forever been a difficult situation and obliteration. He goes to Helen in Greek folklore, viewed as the most gorgeous lady on the planet, brought the destruction upon her, and numerous others. The picture of Helen summons one more figure Aphrodite, who emerged from the shower. The association of Aphrodite with Hephaestus quibble legged Smith infers the Maud Gonne-McBride episode. It makes the writer keep thinking about whether the delightful ladies eat something inept for salad, that they pursue an idiotic choice which brings wretchedness for eternity. "The rich Horn of Plenty" is reminiscent of kindness, privileged, and service, that is lost by those ladies who pursue moronic choices.

 

Stanza Five

In courtesy I’d have her chiefly learned;

Hearts are not had as a gift but hearts are earned

By those that are not entirely beautiful;

Yet many, that have played the fool

For beauty’s very self, has charm made wise,

And many a poor man that has roved,

Loved and thought himself beloved,

From a glad kindness cannot take his eyes.

In stanza  five of 'A Prayer for My Daughter', the writer go on with what he believes his girl should have more than simple excellence. He maintains that his little girl should figure out how to be sympathetic and kind. Ordinarily, men who accepted to adore and cherished by the wonderful ladies confronted dissatisfaction contrasted with those tracked down adoration in the unassuming yet humane ladies. Also, he says unobtrusive and polite individuals draw in hearts than those with excellence, alluding to his own marriage. Eventually, he clarifies that he believes his little girl should be a pleasant young lady than a haughty marvel.

 

Stanza Six

May she become a flourishing hidden tree

That all her thoughts may like the linnet be,

And have no business but dispensing round

Their magnanimities of sound,

Nor but in merriment begin a chase,

Nor but in merriment a quarrel.

O may she live like some green laurel

Rooted in one dear perpetual place.

Stanza Seven

My mind, because the minds that I have loved,

The sort of beauty that I have approved,

Prosper but little, has dried up of late,

Yet knows that to be choked with hate

May well be of all evil chances chief.

If there’s no hatred in a mind

Assault and battery of the wind

Can never tear the linnet from the leaf.

Yeats continues to talk about self-contentment women in stanza seven of ‘A prayer for my daughter’. He believes that kind, self-contained, traditionally rooted women are incorruptible. The poet considers hatred to be the cause of all evil and prays that her to be left off that evil. Further, he believes that a soul free from hatred will preserve its innocence and hatred. Just as the storm outside can’t tear leaves from sturdy trees, turmoil and war can’t break a strong woman.

 

Stanza Eight

An intellectual hatred is the worst,

So let her think opinions are accursed.

Have I not seen the loveliest woman born

Out of the mouth of Plenty’s horn,

Because of her opinionated mind

Barter that horn and every good

By quiet natures understood

For an old bellows full of angry wind?

In stanza eight of ‘A prayer for my daughter’, the poet implores his daughter to shun passion and wild feelings that he considered as the weakness of beautiful women. She must be temperate because people who love deeply, could hate deeply too. Hate destroys people and makes them do cruel things, especially intellectual hatred which is worst of all kinds. The poet reflects upon his emotional state when Maud Gonne rejected him to marry John Macbride. He wants his daughter to experience neither the disappointment nor hatred.

 

Stanza Nine

Considering that, all hatred driven hence,

The soul recovers radical innocence

And learns at last that it is self-delighting,

Self-appeasing, self-affrighting,

And that its own sweet will is Heaven’s will;

She can, though every face should scowl

And every windy quarter howl

Or every bellows burst, be happy still.

The ninth stanza continues to describe the impact of hatred and the benefit of staying away from hatred. Once hatred is driven out, the soul could recover its innocence. Then the soul would be free to explore and find that it is “self-delighting”, “Self-appeasing” and “self-affrighting”.  According to the poet, the ideal woman makes everyone happy and comfortable, despite all storms of misfortunes that come in her way. She is a stronghold for people around her and her will would be that of heavens, for she has a clear mind.

 

Stanza Ten

And may her bridegroom bring her to a house

Where all’s accustomed, ceremonious;

For arrogance and hatred are the wares

Peddled in the thoroughfares.

How but in custom and in ceremony

Are innocence and beauty born?

Ceremony’s a name for the rich horn,

And custom for the spreading laurel tree.

In the last stanza of 'A Prayer for my Daughter', the writer communicates his last desire. He implores that his little girl to be hitched to a decent spouse who takes her to a home with privileged values and customs. There, he accepts that neither self-importance nor disdain of normal people could be found, however ethical quality and virtue. Further, the writer doesn't believe she should carry on with a debauched life. He finishes up by expressing that his little girl would be established in profound qualities like a 'shrub tree'.