William Butler Yeats wrote "A Prayer for My Daughter" to express his hopes and concerns for his newborn daughter's future. He prays that she will be blessed with virtue, wisdom, and kindness over mere beauty. Yeats hopes his daughter will find intimacy through courtesy rather than opinions, and find happiness in custom and ceremony rather than hatred. Overall, the poem reflects a father's desire to guide his daughter to a content life through spiritual qualities rather than superficial ones.

1. APrayer For My Daughter
~ William ButlerYeats
Kaushal Desai
Assistant Professor of English Language &
Literature
kaushaldesai123@gmail.com

2. Let us see…
• About poet
• Poem: A Prayer for My Daughter
• Title of the poem
• Theme of the Poem
• Overall Synopsis
• Poetic Devices
• Figures Of Speech
• Language, Diction, Mood, Structure
• What does the poet want his Daughter to become?

3. William Butler Yeats
• William Butler Yeats (b. June 13, 1865, d. Jan.
28, 1939) was a celebrated Irish poet, prose
writer and dramatist.
• He wrote a poem “A Prayer for my Daughter,”
composed June 1919 and published 1921 in his
collection Michael Robartes and the Dancer.
As a point of interest, Yeats’ poem “A Prayer
for my Son” is also beautiful, and very
specifically evocative of the vulnerability of the
Christ child, and of the might of parental love
that fears not the world, but only – rightly and
truly – God.

4. 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-legged smith for man.
It's certain that fine women eat
A crazy salad with their meat
Whereby the Horn of plenty is undone.

5. Poem: A Prayer for My Daughter
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.

6. Title of the poem
• The title of the poem is very suggestive and meaningful.
• “A Prayer for My Daughter” is the title which can guide us to see a
pure virtue for his daughter.
• Father is worried about his daughter's future.
• Yeats ideas, and his anxiety about his baby daughter's future and life.
He wants his daughter to become a woman who is virtuous, wise.

7. Theme of the Poem
• Prayer
• Father’s anxiety for his daughter
• Love for daughter
The poem portrays how a father, who has been blessed with a
daughter, prays for the future happiness and welfare of her.
The poet hopes that instead of growing up to be a very
beautiful woman, his daughter should be blessed with the
attributes of a virtuous and great soul. She should be well-
mannered and full of humility rather than being strongly
opinionated, to avoid intellectual detestation because that
can drown her in misery.

8. Overall Synopsis

9. •In the second stanza the poet describes the
things while he was praying for his
daughter. He walks for an hour and notices
the "sea-wind scream upon the tower",
"under the arches of the bridge", "in the
elms above the flooded stream." They
probably represent the dreaming of the
human beings and they are decisive. They
are all about the present things and they
block people from thinking about the future
events.

10. •In the third stanza he prays for her beauty,
but not too much. He considers the
beauty as a decisive element for choosing
the right person to marry. He emphasizes
that too much beauty may cause her loose
the "natural kindness" thus that might
prevent her from finding the "heart-
revealing intimacy" and a true friend.

11. • Related with the third stanza, the fourth stanza refers
to Helen herself, who "being chosen found life flat and
dull," and also to Aphrodite, the goddess of love, who
chose her spouse the cripple, Hephaestus. Helen "had
much trouble from a fool", the fool is Menelaus, the
husband of Helen, whom she deserted in favor of Paris.
Whereas Aphrodite suffered from "being fatherless",
hence without a father to guide her, Yeats intends to be
a guiding father to his young daughter.

12. • The fifth stanza describes the quality that Yeats came
to see as at the very heart of civilized life: courtesy. By
courtesy he understands a means of being in the world
that would protect the best of human dignity, art and
emotion. And in his prayer for his daughter he wishes
that she will learn to survive with grace and dignity in a
world turned horrific. He explains that many men have
hopelessly loved beautiful women, and they thought
that the women loved them as well but they did not.

13. • In the sixth stanza he hopes that his daughter will be a
"flourishing hidden tree", which is not rebel but kind
and happy, but contains her happiness within a
particular place. And additionally he wants his daughter
to be not argumentative and aggressive, or perhaps
quite and secure, "rooted in one dear perpetual place."
When combined with the previous line, the last line
clearly defines his hope for daughter to live in a
victorious life "like a green laurel.“ And the linnet also
represents that he wants her thoughts to be a guide for
a good life for her and her life to be in a good fate.

14. • In the seventh stanza he tells about himself a
little bit, and we can conclude that he also
suffered from love and beauty, but he also
emphasize that hatred is drying and destructive.
Thus he declare that hatred is the worst response
one can have in the world. He hopes that his
daughter will not have such strong opinions
which are the forms of hatred.

15. • Then he implies that "an intellectual hatred" is
the worst of hatreds. In this 8th stanza he uses
an image "Plenty's horn." It symbolizes the
source of the rich gifts that will be given, served
to his daughter. This part of the poem also
accuses "the loveliest woman", Maud Gonne,
because of not using properly the gifts given to
her and he hopes that her daughter will use
them well and wisely.
•

16. • Ninth stanza serves the ideas of Yeats about
hatred and recovering of the world. He
supports that a woman can heal herself by
getting away from hatred and also the world
can be purified by avoiding from hatred and
diversions. Thus we can recover the innocence
and we can "be happy still."

17. • In the conclusion stanza he hopes her
daughter to be married in ceremony, of
which source is the "horn" again. He uses
the ceremony to symbolize the richness of
the horn and the power of the "laurel tree."

18. Poetic Devices
• Onomatopoeia (the use of words that sound like the thing that
they are describing) - howling, scream, spray, choke, scowl, howl
• Repetition (saying the same thing many times) - in the ninth
stanza: self-appeasing, self delighting, and self-affrighting
• Alliteration (the use of several words together that begin with the
same sound or letter in order to make a special effect) – howling,
and half hid, cradle-hood and coverlid, great gloom, sea-wind
scream, being made beautiful, like the linnet, live like, linnet from
the leaf, hatred driven hence, recovers radical, bellows burst,
bridegroom bring, find a friend
• Assonance (similarity in the vowel sounds of words that are close
together in a poem)- walked and prayed, young-hour, such-
overmuch, trouble- fool, with-meat, yet-that-played,
beauty-very, poor-roved, loved-thought-beloved, hidden-tree,
dried-late, linnet-leaf, should-scowl, quarter-bowl, hatred-wares,
spreading laurel tree.

19. Figures Of Speech
• Metaphor: Ceremony is used for the Plenty's horn, custom is
used for the spreading laurel tree, linnet is used for good faith,
and laurel is used for having a victorious life
• Personification: Sea-wind scream-human being,
years...dancing-human being, frenzied drum-human being,
angry wind- human being, Simile- "all her thoughts may like
the linnet be", "may she live like some green laurel“
• Juxtaposition: "murderous innocence“
• Imagery: The "storm" is representing the dangerous outside
forces, may be the future that she will encounter with soon.
The "cradle" is representing his daughter's babyhood. The sea
is the source of the wind and logically is the source of "future
years" as well. The "murderous innocence" is attributed to the
sea and represents poet's daughter and the outside world
which waits for her. He uses the imagery "dried" for his mind to
explain how the bad ideas are rooted in his mind. And also he
uses the "horn" as ceremony and the "tree" as custom.

20. Language, Diction, Mood, Structure
• The language used in the poem is like the language used in lectures and also
prayer. The word "may" gives to the poem a pray-like mood.
• The narrator is the poet's himself, and he tells the poem quite personal. He uses
"I", "she", "my daughter" to make it personalize and that is what make Diction.
• The moods of the stanzas are different than the others. But the first stanza has a
frightening atmosphere. In the second stanza he is anxious about what will
future bring to her, the third one has the same mood but in here he is careful. In
the next one he uses classical mythology to express his obsessions. The fifth one
is a little bit more confident and hopeful. The sixth one is more cautious and has
a negative mood. The seventh is self aware, strong and kind of regretful. And the
last three stanzas are written in a happy mood and have hopefulness.
• The structure of the poem is not complex to analyze. It has 10 stanzas and eight
lines each. It was written in iambic pentameter. The rhyme scheme is aabbcddc,
and the rhythm is regular.

21. What does the poet want his
Daughter to become?
• He uses the image of his daughter partly to represent his ideal woman.
Most of the images that he uses are parts of the ideal woman he has in
his mind or its opposites.
• He supports that a woman should be "a flourishing hidden tree", who is
not well-known but beautiful.
• She shouldn't be anything but "merry." " Innocence" is beautiful in
women, that's why if his daughter keeps her innocence inside and do
not abuse it, she will not be affected by the "wind."
• He thinks that too much beauty distorts women, and causes them to
destroy the gifts that are given by "Horn of Plenty" thus he wants his
daughter to use the gifts wisely and properly. And he wants his
daughter to learn the fact that "hearts are earned", and the men, who
are deceived by just beauty, will notice their mistake later. He wants her
daughter not to have strong opinions like hatred, because he thinks that
hatred is the worst thing in the world. He hopes she will marry, and her
house will be full of customs.

22. Thank You…
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