[1020] A Prayer For My Daughter

Guest poem submitted by Priya Chakravarthi, <priya.chakravarthi@>:

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-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 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.

	-- William Butler Yeats

I was taught this poem in school and it remains one of my favourites.
Despite the seeming simplicity of its theme the poem has a deep political
undercurrent and Yeats' trademark cynicism.

Yeats was deeply involved in Irish politics, particularly the struggle for
freedom from England. His verse, even after Ireland's independence,
reflected pessimism about the political situation in his country and the
rest of Europe. In fact the howling storm with which the poem opens refers
to the gathering clouds in Ireland's political scene. In the course of his
political activities Yeats met an extremely beautiful rebel called Maud
Gonne and was influenced by her strength of character and political ideas.
Maud however chose to marry a man who Yeats considered to be an intellectual
pygmy. The "old bellows full of angry wind" is a scathing reference to this
man and the part about Helen and Venus is meant to refer to Maud. The
daughter in this poem is the product of his marriage with Georgie Hyde Lees
who was said to be rather plain.


So much of the ability to appreciate poetry depends on how it was taught in
one's formative years. When I learnt this poem in school I remember the
teacher analyzing every line and explaining the allegory to Irish folklore
in great detail.

Priya.

[Moreover]

"We all of us have or ought to have a group of poems we admire greatly but
dislike. There is so much high art in 'A Prayer for My Daughter', admirably
set forth by the Yeatsians, that the poem compels great respect. 'Under Ben
Bulben', and some other famous poems by Yeats, will be seen someday as
structures of cant and rant, but 'A Prayer for My Daughter" has the
ritualistic strength of Spenser at his strongest, no matter what it is that
here informs the ritualism. As a wholly coherent work, it disarms formalist
criticism, and further possesses an excellence rarely attained by any poem
of celebration, by providing an epitome of the values it praises and
desires. In its eighty lines we are given a complete map of Yeats' social
mind, at least of that mind in the act of idealization."

	-- Harold Bloom, "Yeats"

Bloom, for once, gets it absolutely right. I cannot bring myself to
sympathize with the social and moral philosophy this poem seems to espouse,
but I have to admit that it's beautifully written: Yeats at his fascinating
best.

thomas.

From: "Aine Ni Mhairtin" <melanghel@>

Contrary to what Priya Chakravarthi learned at school, or appears to
believe, Ireland has never achieved independence from England.  Twenty six
Counties, collectively known as The Republic of Ireland have a certain
freedom and independence, however six Northern Counties remain under
English/British control and are occupied by thousands of English/British
troops.  Until all thirty-two Counties are free and independent Ireland will
not have achieved independence.

With regard to poem #1020 - sexist tripe, is sexist tripe, is sexist tripe,
however beautifully written!  Moreover, when that sexist tripe is occasioned
by a "poet" whining at women having beauty, because a beautiful woman that
he wants does not want him; it becomes not poetry much less "high art", but
an unattractive and unedifying spectacle of male pettiness and hypocrisy.
Beautiful woman don't want me boo hoo hoo, women shouldn't be allowed beauty
boo hoo hoo then I could feel constantly superior boo hoo hoo.

'A Prayer for my Daughter', despite Harold Bloom's protestations, is the
"structure of cant and rant", not Under Ben Bulben etc., which, far from
compelling respect, engenders only a re-estimation of Yeats intellectual
stature and a consequent lowering of one's original estimation. It is bad
enough that Yeats squanders his undoubted talent and art on such sexist
diatribe, but when he pens his "intellectual" hatred under the guise of
fatherly concern and social and moral philosophy then the sheer hypocrisy of
his "rant and cant" (or in street vernacular - whingeing) negates entirely
that same "high art".

Down the centuries spurned male poets (and female) have mounted - directly -
humourous, witty and/or scathing poetic attacks on the object of their
former, or still current, desire.  May they long continue to do so -
rejection can be a wonderful stimulus!   Intellectual and moral dishonesty,
however, is something else entirely and is worthy of neither admiration nor
respect.

From: "Bill Crow" <crowfish3@>

I would like to respond to the sweepingly impertinent remarks made by
the Mélange from Amazonium: Madam, Commrade, person - I think it is
somewhat slovenly to grind the Ax of  " Sexist Tripe" over a poem of
such immense and majestic Beauty - beauty in launguage, beauty in
structure and beauty in sentiment. I do not hear any " boo hoos" in this
poem but only the lush- elegiac lamentations of a Poet who was seriously
wounded by the love - and his sonorous prayer that his daughter will be
spared the follies and afflictions that have damaged his own life and
the lives of those he loved.
 This Poet is not " whining" at " beautiful women" but rather lamenting
the fate of Beauty in this " murderous sea " of Time and Space ''
...and he is doing so on several different levels including but hardly
limited to "sexual" ones.
I also don't agree that Yeat's " pens his intellectual hatred under the
guise of fatherly concern and social /moral Philosophy...." I think it
is the critic's rather than the Poet's pen that's using ink from the
poisened vessels or Wrath!
I don't say that anyone is required to endorse Yeat's deeply held
convictions concerning custom and cermony  - though they are among the
fundamental requisites for any sort of community and communion - or what
makes for a forfilling existance. Furthermore, I'm not enough of a
scholar in either Irish Lit. or Mr. Yeats' to be certain that my
understanding of this Poem is entirely adequate. What I do see here is a
beautifully executed and Majestic piece of poetry intended primarily as
a sincere attempt to shelter and Bless: the Poet's wish that his
daughter "Can, though every face should scowl / And every windy quarter
howl/ .../ be happy still ." I mean, where is the "sexist tripe" and "
Boo hooing" and intellectual hatred under the guise of fatherly concern"
 in this prayer?
It seems apparent to me that numerous negative / reductionistic/
Doctrinaire and psuedo-psycological presuppositions are required for
such a simplistic dissmissal of
 Mr. Yeats and his prayer. What is the value of inflating a few residual
excressences so that you can dismiss great works of literature with a
Mao-istic flicker of your P.C. index finger?  I think this is a very
sobering indication of where Things are headed.
Well, this is clumsy, but the best I could do at the moment, Willy
















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From: aravind.subramanian@  Thu Mar 13 23:40:09 2003

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From: mary <magicmary@>

beautifully written desire for his daughter's quality of personality.would that i could write such an expression of all my hope for my daughters' journey through this life.m prince

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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>beautifully written desire for his daughter's 
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hope for my daughters' journey through this life.m 
prince</FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>

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From: Michael Potts <michael@>