A Prayer For My Daughter Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABCAAAA DDEEFGGF AAHHAFFA BIJJKAAL AABIMAAN FFAAOBBO AAAAPAAP AAQQAAAA RSMMCTTC UUUUFQQF| Once more the storm is howling and half hid | A |
| Under this cradle hood and coverlid | A |
| My child sleeps on There is no obstacle | B |
| But Gregory's wood and one bare hill | C |
| Whereby the haystack and roof levelling wind | A |
| Bred on the Atlantic can be stayed | A |
| And for an hour I have walked and prayed | A |
| Because of the great gloom that is in my mind | A |
| - | |
| I have walked and prayed for this young child an hour | D |
| And heard the sea wind scream upon the tower | D |
| And under the arches of the bridge and scream | E |
| In the elms above the flooded stream | E |
| Imagining in excited reverie | F |
| That the future years had come | G |
| Dancing to a frenzied drum | G |
| Out of the murderous innocence of the sea | F |
| - | |
| May she be granted beauty and yet not | A |
| Beauty to make a stranger's eye distraught | A |
| Or hers before a looking glass for such | H |
| Being made beautiful overmuch | H |
| Consider beauty a sufficient end | A |
| Lose natural kindness and maybe | F |
| The heart revealing intimacy | F |
| That chooses right and never find a friend | A |
| - | |
| Helen being chosen found life flat and dull | B |
| And later had much trouble from a fool | I |
| While that great Queen that rose out of the spray | J |
| Being fatherless could have her way | J |
| Yet chose a bandy legg d smith for man | K |
| It's certain that fine women eat | A |
| A crazy salad with their meat | A |
| Whereby the Horn of plenty is undone | L |
| - | |
| In courtesy I'd have her chiefly learned | A |
| Hearts are not had as a gift but hearts are earned | A |
| By those that are not entirely beautiful | B |
| Yet many that have played the fool | I |
| For beauty's very self has charm made wisc | M |
| And many a poor man that has roved | A |
| Loved and thought himself beloved | A |
| From a glad kindness cannot take his eyes | N |
| - | |
| May she become a flourishing hidden tree | F |
| That all her thoughts may like the linnet be | F |
| And have no business but dispensing round | A |
| Their magnanimities of sound | A |
| Nor but in merriment begin a chase | O |
| Nor but in merriment a quarrel | B |
| O may she live like some green laurel | B |
| Rooted in one dear perpetual place | O |
| - | |
| My mind because the minds that I have loved | A |
| The sort of beauty that I have approved | A |
| Prosper but little has dried up of late | A |
| Yet knows that to be choked with hate | A |
| May well be of all evil chances chief | P |
| If there's no hatred in a mind | A |
| Assault and battery of the wind | A |
| Can never tear the linnet from the leaf | P |
| - | |
| An intellectual hatred is the worst | A |
| So let her think opinions are accursed | A |
| Have I not seen the loveliest woman born | Q |
| Out of the mouth of plenty's horn | Q |
| Because of her opinionated mind | A |
| Barter that horn and every good | A |
| By quiet natures understood | A |
| For an old bellows full of angry wind | A |
| - | |
| Considering that all hatred driven hence | R |
| The soul recovers radical innocence | S |
| And learns at last that it is self delighting | M |
| Self appeasing self affrighting | M |
| And that its own sweet will is Heaven's will | C |
| She can though every face should scowl | T |
| And every windy quarter howl | T |
| Or every bellows burst be happy Still | C |
| - | |
| And may her bridegroom bring her to a house | U |
| Where all's accustomed ceremonious | U |
| For arrogance and hatred are the wares | U |
| Peddled in the thoroughfares | U |
| How but in custom and in ceremony | F |
| Are innocence and beauty born | Q |
| Ceremony's a name for the rich horn | Q |
| And custom for the spreading laurel tree | F |
William Butler Yeats
(2)
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About A Prayer For My Daughter
A Prayer For My Daughter is a poem by William Butler Yeats. This page includes the poem text, poet information, related topics, comments, and similar poems.
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