

#A Prayer for my Daughter


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#### Corpus of Electronic Texts Edition


### Background details and bibliographic information


A Prayer for my Daughter
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Author: William Butler Yeats
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### File Description

Electronic edition compiled and proof-read by Beatrix Färber

Funded by School of History, University College, Cork 1. First draft.Extent of text: 
1115 words
#### Publication


CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts: a project of University College, Cork  
College Road, Cork, Ireland—http://www.ucc.ie/celt

 (2014) Distributed by CELT online at University College, Cork, Ireland.  
Text ID Number: E910001-065Availability [RESTRICTED] 
The works by W. B. Yeats are in the public domain. This electronic text is available with prior consent of the CELT programme for purposes of private or academic research and teaching.


#### Notes

This poem was written between February and June 1919 and first published in *Poetry* in November 1919 (A. Norman Jeffares, p. 244).

#### Sources


**Literature (a small selection)**2. W. B. Yeats, The Autobiography of William Butler Yeats, consisting of Reveries over childhood and youth, The trembling of the veil, and Dramatis personae (New York 1938).
3. Richard Ellmann, Yeats: The Man and the Masks. Corrected edition with a new preface (Oxford 1979). [First published New York 1948; reprinted London 1961.]
4. Peter Allt and Russell K. Alspach, The Variorum Edition of the Poems of W.B. Yeats (New York: Macmillan 1957).
5. W. B. Yeats, Essays and Introductions (New York: Macmillan 1961).
6. W. B. Yeats, Explorations: selected by Mrs W. B. Yeats (London/New York: Macmillan 1962).
7. Richard Ellmann, The Identity of Yeats (New York 1964).
8. A. Norman Jeffares, A New Commentary on the Poems of W.B. Yeats (Stanford 1984).
9. A general bibliography is available online at the official web site of the Nobel Prize. See: http://nobelprize.org/nobel\_prizes/literature/laureates/1923/yeats-bibl.html
**The edition used in the digital edition**2. William Butler Yeats A Prayer for my Daughter in , Ed. Richard J. Finneran The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats. Macmillan Press, London, (1991) pages 190–192

### Encoding


#### Project Description


CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts


#### Sampling Declaration


The whole poem.


#### Editorial Declaration


##### Correction


The text has been proof-read twice.


##### Normalization


The electronic text represents the edited text.


##### Hyphenation


The editorial practice of the hard-copy editor has been retained.


##### Segmentation


div0= the individual poem, stanzas are marked lg.


##### Interpretation


Names of persons (given names), and places are not tagged. Terms for cultural and social roles are not tagged.


### Profile Description


Created: 
 (1919) #### Use of language


##### Language: [EN] The poem is in English.


### Revision History


* (2014-05-01) Beatrix Färber (ed.)

* File parsed and validated; SGML and HTML files created.
* (2014-05-01) Beatrix Färber (ed.)

* Structural markup applied according to CELT practice; TEI header created with bibliographical detail.
* (1996) Students at the CELT Project, UCC (ed.)

* First proofing.
* (1996) Donnchadh Ó Corráin (data capture)

* Text captured




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#### Corpus of Electronic Texts Edition: E910001-065


### A Prayer for my Daughter: Author: William Butler Yeats




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p.190


1. 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.
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.
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.


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p.191

6. 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.
7. 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.
8. 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.
9. 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.


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p.192

12. 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?
13. 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.
14. 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.










