{
 "id": "w-b-yeats/a-prayer-for-my-daughter",
 "title": "A Prayer for My Daughter",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "W. B. Yeats",
 "poet_slug": "w-b-yeats",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Michael Robartes and the Dancer",
 "book_slug": "michael-robartes-and-the-dancer",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 9,
 "container": "Michael Robartes and the Dancer",
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1920,
  "venue": "Michael Robartes and the Dancer (1920)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/robertes00wby"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/w-b-yeats_poetry",
  "file": "poetry.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/49608",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/32491",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/36865",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/49609",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/49615",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/49609",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/32233",
   "https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.92252",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001776372",
   "https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Dublin_University_Review/fE8wAQAAMAAJ",
   "https://www.google.ie/books/edition/The_Dublin_University_Review/TWUEAAAAQAAJ",
   "https://www.google.ie/books/edition/The_Dublin_University_Review/TFAwAQAAMAAJ",
   "https://www.google.ie/books/edition/The_Irish_Monthly/EMoaAAAAYAAJ",
   "https://archive.org/details/gop-1889",
   "https://archive.org/details/poemsandballads00unkngoog",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/000551354",
   "https://archive.org/details/fairytalesirish00yeatrich",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/008958226",
   "https://archive.org/details/countesskathleen00yeat",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/008883383",
   "https://archive.org/details/poeticalworksofw01yeat",
   "https://archive.org/details/collectedworksin01yeat",
   "https://archive.org/details/collectedworksin02yeatuoft",
   "https://archive.org/details/collectedworksin00yeatuoft",
   "https://archive.org/details/responsibilities00yeatiala",
   "https://books.google.com/books?id=jDI3AAAAIAAJ",
   "https://archive.org/details/robertes00wby/robertes00wby",
   "https://archive.org/details/poemsyeatrich",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001020237"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-21"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 80,
  "n_stanzas": 10,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 53,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Once more the storm is howling and half hid",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Under this cradle-hood and coverlid",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "My child sleeps on. There is no obstacle",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But Gregory’s wood and one bare hill",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Whereby the haystack and roof-levelling wind,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Bred on the Atlantic, can be stayed;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And for an hour I have walked and prayed",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Because of the great gloom that is in my mind.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I have walked and prayed for this young child an hour",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And heard the sea-wind scream upon the tower,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And under the arches of the bridge, and scream",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In the elms above the flooded stream;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Imagining in excited reverie",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That the future years had come,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Dancing to a frenzied drum,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Out of the murderous innocence of the sea.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "May she be granted beauty and yet not",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Beauty to make a stranger’s eye distraught,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or hers before a looking-glass, for such,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Being made beautiful overmuch,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Consider beauty a sufficient end,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Lose natural kindness and maybe",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The heart-revealing intimacy",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That chooses right and never find a friend.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Helen being chosen found life flat and dull",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And later had much trouble from a fool,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "While that great Queen, that rose out of the spray,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Being fatherless could have her way",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yet chose a bandy-legged smith for man.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It’s certain that fine women eat",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A crazy salad with their meat",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Whereby the Horn of Plenty is undone.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "In courtesy I’d have her chiefly learned;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Hearts are not had as a gift but hearts are earned",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By those that are not entirely beautiful;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yet many, that have played the fool",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For beauty’s very self, has charm made wise,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And many a poor man that has roved,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Loved and thought himself beloved,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From a glad kindness cannot take his eyes.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "May she become a flourishing hidden tree",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That all her thoughts may like the linnet be,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And have no business but dispensing round",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Their magnanimities of sound,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor but in merriment begin a chase,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor but in merriment a quarrel.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Oh, may she live like some green laurel",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Rooted in one dear perpetual place.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "My mind, because the minds that I have loved,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The sort of beauty that I have approved,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Prosper but little, has dried up of late,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yet knows that to be choked with hate",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "May well be of all evil chances chief.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "If there’s no hatred in a mind",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Assault and battery of the wind",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Can never tear the linnet from the leaf.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "An intellectual hatred is the worst,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So let her think opinions are accursed.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Have I not seen the loveliest woman born",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Out of the mouth of Plenty’s horn,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Because of her opinionated mind",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Barter that horn and every good",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By quiet natures understood",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For an old bellows full of angry wind?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Considering that, all hatred driven hence,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The soul recovers radical innocence",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And learns at last that it is self-delighting,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Self-appeasing, self-affrighting.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And that its own sweet will is heaven’s will;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She can, though every face should scowl",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And every windy quarter howl",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or every bellows burst, be happy still.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And may her bride-groom bring her to a house",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where all’s accustomed, ceremonious;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For arrogance and hatred are the wares",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Peddled in the thoroughfares.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "How but in custom and in ceremony",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Are innocence and beauty born?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Ceremony’s a name for the rich horn,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And custom for the spreading laurel tree.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}