by W.H.Auden it is a poem by Auden addressing his daughter. He expresses his own desires and expectations from his daughter. The poem has a universal feeling of a typical father towards his own daughter. The father in the poet indicates his concerns regarding his daughter.

1. A Prayer for
My Daughter
-W. H.Auden
Presented by
Prof. R. R. Borse,
Asst.Prof.,
Eng.Dept.,
B.P.Arts,S.M.A.Sci.,K.K.C.Comm.College,Chalisgaon
Mail- ravindraborse1@gmail.com

9. Stanza 1 ..
Once more the storm is howling, and half hid Under this cradle-hood and cover lid,
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 innocent little infant Anne is fast asleep in her cradle. The hood of the cradle half-
covers the cradle. A furious storm coming from the Atlantic ocean batters everything
outside the house. The bare hill and the woods bear the brunt of the storm. The hay
stack and the roof can barely stand the thrust of the raging winds.
Anne, oblivious of the fury of nature outside, sleeps, but her father is filled with worries
about her safety, and her rearing in the hard times that ahead. In reality, Yeats was strolling
when these disturbing thoughts grip his mind. He imagines the storm as a symbol of the
unraveling difficult times. He is deeply apprehensive about Anne’s upbringing. The cradle
and its hood that partly cover it are the symbols of the limited security Yeats, as a father,
can provide to Anne.
No reader of this poem will fail to notice the liberal use of metonyms, metaphors and
other types of figures of speech in this poem.

11. Stanza 2 …
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.
The poet’s sense of gloom deepens as he continues his walk for about an hour. The
weather, as conjured by his nervous mind, is violent and destructive. The nature appears
to wreck its vengeance on man. A confluence of devastating forces is imagined as the
“Flooded stream” that is going to wash away everything on its way. Even the strong elms
trees are tossed around by the torment unleashed by the winds. The future, in its most
hideous form confronts the author.
A little later, the poet sees some light, some respite from the traumatic hallucinations. He
thinks of the days to come when Anne would grow up to a world of hope and
possibilities. By saying, ‘That the future years had come, Dancing to a frenzied drum’, the
author invokes optimism and a permanent respite from the doom and gloom of the
prevailing difficult days.

13. Stanza 3 ..
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.
Yeats hopes that Anne would grow up to a beautiful damsel. But he does not like her to
be a paragon of beauty. In Yeats’s view, extreme beauty could be harmful and ruinous for
a woman. It might invite zealously, and sarcasm from others. It might make those people
distraught, who aspire for her hands but, can’t get it. The spurned lover may, even,
become vengeful towards her. Beauty that inspires wild passion in others is fraught.
Beauty often misleads the beholder by giving a false sense that she is a gifted extra-
ordinary person who has no need of any other desirable qualities. Such vainglorious
feeling is unhelpful to a woman. The resulting arrogance may rob her of kindness.

15. Stanza 4 …
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 this stanza, Yeats recounts the miserable fate that befell the Helen of
Troy and Venus. Both were immensely beatiful, but carried huge load of
curse and suffering. They were condemned to marry a “fool” and a
“bandy-leggèd smith”.

17. Stanza 5 …
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.
The next stanza deals with what Yeats determines are very important
womanly qualities such as courtesy, or kindness and civility. He asserts
that men adore women who exude charm, kindness and gentle manners.
Being exquisitely beautiful is not necessarily a very lovely woman’s
prerequisite. “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”.

19. Stanza 6….
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.
Yeats hopes that his daughter grows up to embody wisdom, joy and
reticence. Yeats wants her to live in a protected place, away from gloom,
danger and destruction. He certainly does not want her to be exposed to
the turmoil and frenzy he had conjured up at the beginning of the poem.
He uses the idea and image of a deep-rooted and stable sprawling tree to
express the safety and security needed for his daughter. Yeats writes, “O
may she live like some green laurel/Rooted in one dear perpetual place”

21. Stanza 7….
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.
In the next stanza Yeats introspects, and wryly concludes that his mind is
“dried up of late” (51), which is weathering away. However, quite
steadfastly, he keeps the temptation of ‘hate’ away. He knows that a mind
afflicted by hate is doomed, because the smouldering cinders of hatred
consume the noble creativity of mind. In the line “to be choked with
hate/May well be of all evil chances chief” (52-53), he asserts this with
conviction.

23. Stanza 8 …
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 this stanza, Yeats unravels his feelings relating to the woman who spurned his love
four times – Maud Gonne. The wound and the rancor Maud inflicted on his mind
comes to the fore in this stanza.
Maud, a very ravishing woman as per Yeats, not only rejected his courtship, but went on
to marry MacBride. Yeats could not reconcile to this all his life. Maud, according to
Yeats, was a highly gifted woman, who was showered with gifts from “Plenty’s horn”
(60). Sadly, her “opinionated mind” made her to squander all those precious things on
Major MacBride. Maud’s fiercely-held convictions and fiery idealism made her too
‘opinionated’. This imparted a negative aura to her personality. Hence, Yeats felt his
daughter must not be ‘opinionated’.

25. Stanza 9 …
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.
Yeats then fondly hopes that his daughter becomes as beautiful as Maud,
but does not get the latter’s haughtiness and arrogance. He wants his
daughter to submit to Heaven’s will with a smiling face. Her soul must
imbibe “radical innocence” (66) or be ‘rooted innocence’ (akin to that of
a tree). Such values would bring abundant happiness for her and all those
who eschew hatred.

27. Stanza 10 (Last stanza) ……
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.
The poem ends with an imaginary climax. Yeats, as the loving father,
imagines the marriage of his daughter. She goes to live in her husband’s
home as per the set norms of “custom” and “ceremony” (77). She enjoys
the safety and security of her cozy home in sharp contrast to the decrepit
crumbling house described at the outset of the poem. She does not have
to face the violent storm. He closes his prayer by returning to the image
of the horn and the tree, as sources of custom. Such optimism might
bring deliverance to the world.