May she be granted beauty and yet not

Premium

Explain the following with reference to the context May she be granted beauty and yet not Beauty to make a stranger's eye distraught Or hers before a looking-glass These lines are taken from W B Yeats s - poem A Prayer for My Daughter Yeats wrote this poem in just after the birth of his baby girl Anne In the poem he prays for her future He wishes for the qualities that will help her live a good and peaceful life These lines come from the part where Yeats prays about beauty In the lines Yeats says May she be granted beauty and yet not Beauty to make a stranger's eye distraught Here Yeats wants his daughter to be beautiful but not too beautiful He does not want a kind of beauty that makes strangers lose control or fall deeply in love just by seeing her He feels that extreme

beauty can attract the wrong kind of attention It can create unnecessary problems in life Then Yeats says Or hers before a looking-glass By this he means that he does not want his daughter to become too proud of her own beauty He worries that if she becomes overly beautiful she may spend too much time looking at herself in the mirror She may become vain and selfish She may only care about appearance instead of good manners Yeats believes that too much beauty can destroy a person s natural kindness They may not value love and friendship So he prays for a balanced beauty for her daughter that brings joy but does not lead to pride In simple words Yeats wants his daughter to have gentle beauty with a good heart He does not want dangerous or prideful beauty for her

A Prayer for My Daughter

Contents

May she be granted beauty and yet not

Continue Reading

From this writer

William Butler Yeats

More Notes