A prayer for my Daughter by W. B. Yeats

Thinking Activity

W. B. Yeats' poems

           This blog is written as a thinking Activity assigned Dr. Dilip Barad sir, Department of English, MKBU to study some of the poems of W. B. Yeats'. In this blog I am going study three poems by Years 'The prayer for my daughter'

William Butler Yeats:-

           William Butler Yeats is an Irish poet, dramatist, and prose writer, one of the greatest English-language poets of the 20th century. He was born June 13, 1865, Sandymount, Dublin, Ireland and died January 28, 1939, Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, France. He received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923. He belonged to the Protestant, Anglo-Irish minority that had controlled the economic, political, social, and cultural life of Ireland since at least the end of the 17th century. He was a driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival and became a pillar of the Irish literary establishment who helped to found the Abbey Theatre. In his later years he served two terms as a Senator of the Irish Free State.

       His literary career as a romantic poet and gradually evolved into a modernist poet. When he began publishing poetry in the 1880s, his poems had a lyrical, romantic style, and they focused on love, longing and loss, and Irish myths.

• The Relationship Between Art and Politics
• The Impact of Fate and the Divine on History
• The Transition from Romanticism to Modernism

His major poems include,

• The Second Coming
• The Lake Isle of Innisfire
• Sailing to Byzantium
• Easter, 1916
• An Irish Airman Foresees his Death
• The Stolen Child
• A Prayer for my Daughter
• The Circus Animals' Desertion
• Adam's Curse
• On Being asked for war poem

A Prayer for my Daughter

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

Introduction:-

           "A Prayer for my Daughter" is a poem written by William Butler Yeats. It was written in 1919 and published in 1921 as part of Yeats' collection Michael Robartes and the Dancer. This poem is written to Anne, his daughter with Georgie Hyde Lees, whom Yeats married after his last marriage proposal to Maud Gonne was rejected in 1916. Yeats wrote the poem while staying in a tower at Thoor Ballylee during the Anglo-Irish War, two days after Anne's birth on 26 February 1919. The poem reflects Yeats's complicated views on Irish Nationalism, sexuality, and is considered an important work of Modernist poetry.

           In "A Prayer for My Daughter", Yeats expresses his deep concern for his beloved daughter, Anne, and dreams for her convincing future in his poem. The poem can be read in two different perspectives, first, Yeats' concern for his daughter in the post war era and second, concern of all fathers for their children's growing future in post war era.

Surface reading of the poem:-

              The poem opens in the Yeats home on the west coast of Ireland, where a stormy wind is blowing almost straight off the Atlantic ocean.The poem begins with the site of a storm which is howling outside the home. This storm reflects the situation of the post war period. Here the word storm is used for outside forces which can threaten the safety and thus future of his newborn child. The second line poet says that right now his child is lying in the cradle and protected by the outsider forces, as his child is surrounded by the violent forces around her. Violent forces are riots, violence, starvation or decay of mental values after the first world war. Though these dangerous forces are continuously going there she is ignorant about it as she "sleeps on". Har ignorance protects her from the uneasy knowledge but no one can protect her from outsider forces, not even her father himself. Here the poet gives reference to Robert Gregory, an Irish Air fighter, who fought and died in World War first. 

         Yeats prays that Anne will be beautiful but not excessively, which can be distracting and destructive, as it draws the attention of all even if he is an unknown person. The much beauty makes him distraught and unhappy as if he cannot fulfil his desire to possess this beauty. It will make her stand repeatedly in front of the mirror which ultimately draws her away from the practice of very practical life of hard times. In the next stanza Yeats brings two examples from Greek mythology. First, a character Helen - daughter of God Zeus, who was free of paternal control. She married several times and at last she eloped with the prince of Troy. As a result, she was doomed. Her beauty makes her fool. As she had no one to guide her, Yeats intended to guide his daughter to choose a suitable life partner. And another Maud Gonne, who misused her gifts of intellect, grace and beauty. 

       Yeats wishes that she may have kindness of heart rather than beauty, because whereas a woman's exterior beauty can turn men into complete fools, her inner warmth and charm can make a man lastingly happy. May his girl grow and flourish like a tree hidden away, may her thoughts be as tuneful as the song of a bird, rejoicing everyone around, getting into no arguments or silly pursuits, rooted and thrilling in one place, which shows her staying only at home. 

        In the 7th and 8th stanza the poet reflects his own love experience. He says he has cultivated minds and sought out a mind of beauty that brought him only to hate, the greatest of misfortunes. Whoever keeps no hatred within the heart, he or she will never be disturbed by outside storms. Poet let his daughter drive out hate, and she will discover that all joy, peace and fear arise only from inside of herself, and Heaven will be with her.Then, whatever, all men disturb, storms roar or all anger burst upon her, but still she will be happy. And when she marries, he wishes her to keep all pride and anger out of her home, and foster there what "custom" and "ceremony". 

Critical reading:-

            "A prayer for my Daughter' can be read from two different perspectives. 

Universal Concern of father for their children in the post war era

Feminist perspective

★ Universal concern of father for their children in the post war(post World war I) era:-

               The first and foremost perspective which this poem conveys is the universal concern of a father for their children in the post war era. Though it is not mentioned clearly, the time period in which the poem is written (1919), declares that the poet is conveying concern of the future of the upcoming generation and what sort of seeds their ancestors have sown for them and the results of that they have to bear. Though the first world war ended, there was no peace at home and abroad. Because of war so many catastrophic situations were going on, like riots, violence, Starvation. In the middle of it, it was very much difficult to handle that situation and survive. That's why Yeats has a kind of deep concern for his daughter's upcoming generation. The very first line of the poem presents this in a crystal clear way. There are several lines in the first two stanzas which can be read in this perspective. 

Once more the storm is howling.

But Gregory's wood and one bare hill

Bred on the Atlantic, can be stayed;

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.

Feminist perspective:-

          The other reading can be of the concern of the poet himself for his daughter. Yeats has so many wishes for his daughter. This observation can be seen in 3 to 10 stanzas.

             Yeats' first concern for his daughter is her physical appearance. He trace that she will be beautiful but not to beautiful which might arouse in her a sense of her own autonomy that she spent whole day looking at the mirror. Poet wants her daughter to learn courtesy. 

Structure:-

         The poem contains ten stanzas of eight lines each: two rhymed couplets followed by a quatrain of enclosed rhyme. Many of the rhyme pairs use slant rhyme.The poem also consist of straightforward iambic verse that relies on common metrical devices such as elision, acephalous lines, promotion, and metrical inversion. Lines 1, 2, 3, 5, and 8 of each stanza are iambic pentameter; lines 4, 6, and 7 are iambic tetrameters

Major themes:-

• Anxiety of a father
• Apprehension for uncertain future
• Cultivation of good qualities
• Feminine innocence
• Intellectual hatred
• Glorification of culture and customs

          To conclude, ‘A Prayer for My Daughter’ wonderfully portrays a father's concern for his daughter which becomes a universal symbol of paternal love. This poem concerns survival of a child against the violence and anarchy of the modern world. That's why Yeats prays for his daughter that she must have some noble qualities that can help her to deal with the harsh reality and upcoming hurdles with confidence. Avoiding the hatred and arrogance, she can cultivate good virtues following the traditions and customs, and being open minded she can win the love of others rather than having a ravishing beauty. In a word, Yeats urges for the restoration of Grace and order in a battered civilization under an established culture and tradition.

I hope this blog will be helpful to you to have better understanding of this poem.

Click here to read "Death" by W. B. Yeats

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