A Prayer for My Daughter

"Easter 1916" by W.B. Yeats (1921)

This poem was published in the same collection as “A Prayer for my Daughter”: 1921’s Michael Robartes and the Dancer. It illustrates Yeats’s mixed feelings toward the violent methods used by the Irish Nationalists directly involved with their bid for freedom in1916. This poem informs the political reading of “A Prayer for my Daughter,” as well as offers some insight into the relationship between Yeats and Maud Gonne (who married John MacBride, a leader of the Easter 1916 revolt). Yeats waited until the end of the Irish War of Independence to publish his political poems on this topic, then became a senator of the Free Irish State.

"No Second Troy" by W.B. Yeats (1910)

This poem was part of Yeats’s collection The Green Helmet and Other Poems, Yeats’ fifth book of lyrical poetry. Like“A Prayer for my Daughter,” "No Second Troy” compares Maud Gonne to Helen of Troy. Gonne was Yeats’s muse, but consistently rejected his marriage proposals. In Jeffares’s 1988 biography of Yeats, Gonne is quoted as saying, “You make beautiful poetry out of what you call your unhappiness and are happy in that. Marriage would be such a dull affair.