It is important to read this poem alongside another famous
poem by Yeats, which was actually written just a few months before this poem, "The
Second Coming." In this earlier work, Yeats sets out his prophecy of doom and gloom,
anticipating the "Mere anarchy" and "blood-dimmed tide" that was set loose on the world
due to political changes such as the Russian Revolution and the rise of fascism. Many
critics view "A Prayer for My Daughter" as being a discussion of how to live and
transcend such disturbing events.
The poem begins with an
account of the speaker praying for his daughter in the midst of a "howling" storm
because of a "great gloom" that dominates his mind. Having effectively prophesied a
massive upheaval in the world order, now that he has a daughter, Yeats is concerned
about the kind of world that she will grow up in. Note how the violence of nature finds
a parallel in the violence that is to come as the speaker in the second stanza imagines
the future years "Dancing to a frenzied drum" as the storm rages
outside.
He prays that his daughter will develop the kind
of characteristics that the women he loved did not possess. His former lover, Maud
Gonne, was beautiful and aware of it and also fired by nationalistic fervour. Yeats
prays that his daughter, by contrast, will be given beauty, but not too much, because
too much beauty can lead to vanity and an inability to relate to others. He wishes her
to learn "courtesy" and hopes that she can have a life marked by stability and security,
becoming a "flourishing hidden tree." Above all he wants her to marry into a home where
tradition dominates, for as he says:
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.
In an uncertain world
with an uncertain future, therefore, Yeats seems to argue that the disturbing changes in
the world can be overcome through a life lived focusing on traditional values and the
importance of human kindness.
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