Analysis of A Prayer For My Daughter
William Butler Yeats 1865 (Sandymount) – 1939 (Menton)
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.
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 wisc.
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.
Scheme | AABCDEEDFFGGHIIHJKLLMHHMBNOOPQQRSSBNTAUVHHWWXBBXUYZZ1 DD1 2 A3 3 D4 4 D5 6 TTC7 7 C8 V9 9 H3 3 H |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Etheree (21%) |
Metre | 1101110011 10110101 1111111100 110010111 01010111 110010111 0111011101 01101111011 111011111110 01011101010 01001010101 001010101 01000010100 1010111 1010101 110100100101 1111010011 1011010101 1001010111 1011001 0101000101 110010010 010101000 1101010101 10101011101 0101110101 1111111101 101001101 1101010111 11011101 01010111 0101110101 0100110101 11111011111 111110100100 11011101 111011111 010011111 1010101 1011010111 11010100101 1101110101 0111010101 1111 11010101 1101010 111111110 1001101001 1101011111 0111011101 1011011111 11111111 1111110101 11110001 010100101 1101010101 1010010101 110101011 111101101 1101111 011001001 101101001 1101001 1111011101 01001110101 01010100100 01111111010 101011 0111111101 111100111 010010101 11001011101 010110101 110101 1100010101 100010 1101000100 11000101 1011011 0101010101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 3,019 |
Words | 552 |
Sentences | 20 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 80 |
Lines Amount | 80 |
Letters per line (avg) | 31 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 2,456 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 551 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 30, 2023
- 2:48 min read
- 180 Views
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