A Prayer For My Daughter

The poem begins by describing a "storm" which is "howling", and his newborn daughter, sleeping "half hid" in her cradle, thus protected somewhat from the storm. The storm, which can in part be read as symbolizing the Irish War of Independence, overshadows the birth of Yeats's daughter and creates the political frame that sets the text into historical context.^[4] In stanza two, the setting for the poem is revealed as being "the tower", a setting for many of Yeats's poems including the book of poems titled The Tower published in 1928. This is Thoor Ballylee, an ancient Norman tower in Galway, which Yeats had bought in 1917 and where he intended making a home. Conflicts between Ireland and the United Kingdom were common subjects of Yeats's poetry as he wrote famous poems about the Dublin Lockout ("September 1913") and the Easter Rising ("Easter 1916").David Holdeman suggests that the poem "carries over from 'The Second Coming'" in the tone it uses to describe the political situation facing Ireland at the end of World War One the formation of the Irish Republican Army.^[5]