"A Prayer for my Daughter" is a poem by William Butler Yeats written in 1919 and published in 1921 as part of Yeats' collection Michael Robartes and the Dancer. It 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. William Butler Yeats was an Irish poet, dramatist, writer and one of the foremost figures of 20th-century literature. 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.

1. A Prayer for my
Daughter by W. B.
Yeats
The Irish poet William Butler Yeats wrote “A Prayer
for my Daughter” in 1919, two days after the birth of
his daughter, Anne, and included it in his 1921
collection, Michael Robartes and the Dancer. In the
poem, a speaker (usually read as Yeats himself) prays
about the type of woman he hopes his daughter will
become and the kind of life he hopes she will have.
At its core, the poem expresses a father's heartfelt
wishes for his newborn daughter. In a larger sense, "A
Prayer for my Daughter" is a rich, complex reflection
on the joys and struggles of parenthood, Irish politics,
and Yeats's own past.
‘A Prayer for my Daughter’ by William Butler
Yeats speaks about the poet’s family. It
demonstrates his concern and anxiety over the
future wellbeing and prospects of his daughter,
Anne.