Yeats' ‘A Prayer for My Daughter’ as a prayer for order and grace

William Butler Yeats is one of the most influential poets of the modern age. He represents for us the literary side of the Irish national movement. He believed that civilization represents tyranny for the free spirit of the individual and was unusual in his age in the fact that he did not rail against it but chose to bring to its attention by his own superbly different world of the spirit. ‘A Prayer for My Daughter’ is a poem in which Yeats’s future concern is found clearly.



‘A Prayer for My Daughter’ is a personal poem which reflects the gloom of the poet and his fear of a stormy future. The poem was written in 1919 after the First World War and it reflects the post war frustration. The war ended in 1919 but Ireland remained disturbed. His infant daughter, Annie Butler Yeats, born in 1919, will have to face the challenges of the future. At this point in time, it is inevitable for Yeats to have been concerned about his daughter’s future in such a world. The poet thinks of some qualities or traits of character which can sustain her in the future and make her life joyful and happy.

The poet expresses concern for his infant daughter who is fast asleep in a cradle. The storm is blowing outside and it makes the poet gloomy. He imagines the war drums which forecast the struggle for survival. The cruelty of man is greater than the murderous innocence of the sea. She must have a shield for protection. The poet wishes for his daughter to have beauty but not vanity. Great beauties like Helen- that here represents his girl friend, Maud Gonne and Venus, the Goddess of love stumbled into unhappy marriages because of lack of courtesy and humanity. The poet wants his daughter to cultivate courtesy:
May she be granted beauty and yet not
Beauty to make a stranger’s eye distraught.

The poet wants his daughter to cultivate natural gladness that means the scattering of happiness and peace around. But one thing that he wants her to avoid is hatred. Hatred is the worst of all evils. He wishes that his daughter may grow up and get married in an aristocratic family that observes traditional manners and courtesies. Beauty and innocence come from established custom and usage. ‘Ceremony’ is like the Horn of Plenty and custom is like the growing laurel-tree providing shade and comfort to all. This is the way of life that he wants his daughter to follow.



The prayer for his daughter’s survival becomes also a prayer for an improvement in the world. One can call the poem a manifesto of Yeats’s personal ideas of old age of settled life and established values. In the end, the poem is a prayer for order and grace in a worn out civilization. 

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