“A Prayer for my Daughter” Summary

“A Prayer for my Daughter” Themes

• 

  Womanhood and Traditional Femininity

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• 

  The Power and Danger of Beauty

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• 

  The Hopes and Fears of Parenthood

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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “A Prayer for my Daughter”

• Lines 1-8

  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.

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 9-16

  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.

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 17-24

  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.

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 25-32

  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.

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 33-40

  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.

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 41-48

  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.

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 49-56

  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.

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 57-64

  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?

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 65-72

  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.

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 73-80

  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.

  

  

  

  

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“A Prayer for my Daughter” Symbols

• 

  The Laurel Tree

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• 

  The Horn of Plenty

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• 

  The Storm

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“A Prayer for my Daughter” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language

• Alliteration

  

  

  

  

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• Consonance

  

  

  

  

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• Assonance

  

  

  

  

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• Sibilance

  

  

  

  

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• Metaphor

  

  

  

  

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• Simile

  

  

  

  

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• Polysyndeton

  

  

  

  

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• Paradox

  

  

  

  

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• Rhetorical Question

  

  

  

  

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• Repetition

  

  

  

  

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• Parallelism

  

  

  

  

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• Allusion

  

  

  

  

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“A Prayer for my Daughter” Vocabulary

Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.

• Gregory's Wood
• Tower
• Reverie
• Looking-Glass
• Helen
• Great Queen
• Spray
• Bandy-Leggèd
• Crazy Salad
• Horn of Plenty
• Linnet
• Magnanimities
• Laurel
• Bridegroom
• Accustomed

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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “A Prayer for my Daughter”

• Form

• Meter

• Rhyme Scheme

“A Prayer for my Daughter” Speaker

“A Prayer for my Daughter” Setting

Literary and Historical Context of “A Prayer for my Daughter”

More “A Prayer for my Daughter” Resources

• External Resources

  • The Irish Literary Revival — An online exhibit about the literary movement defined by W. B. Yeats.

  • The Poem Out Loud — Listen to a reading of "A Prayer for my Daughter."

  • The Abbey Theatre — A history of the Abbey Theatre, which Yeats founded with his close friend Lady Gregory.

  • Yeats's Life and Work — A short biography of William Butler Yeats, along with links to many of his poems.

  • Maud Gonne — A short entry about Maud Gonne, who rejected Yeats's repeated marriage proposals and partially inspired "A Prayer for my Daughter." 

• LitCharts on Other Poems by William Butler Yeats

  • Adam's Curse

  • Among School Children

  • An Irish Airman Foresees his Death

  • Byzantium

  • Easter, 1916

  • In Memory of Eva Gore-Booth and Con Markievicz

  • Lapis Lazuli

  • Leda and the Swan

  • Sailing to Byzantium

  • September 1913

  • The Lake Isle of Innisfree

  • The Second Coming

  • The Song of Wandering Aengus

  • The Wild Swans at Coole

  • To a Shade

  • When You Are Old