Discuss the various images used by the poet to foresee a peaceful future for his daughter.
Answers
Answer:
Images used by the poet to foresee a peaceful future for his daughter in "A Prayer for My Daughter" include a young laurel tree with strong roots, a house, and a "rich horn," meaning abundant resources.
Explanation:
As the poem opens, the speaker worries about the fate of his infant daughter as a storm howls. It seems hard to protect her from this violent tempest, with only some woods and a hill between the ocean and the house. The storm becomes a metaphor, too, for the troubled and uncertain times the speaker faces in 1921, not long after World War I had upset the settled ways of Europe.
The speaker says he has great "gloom" on his mind as he thinks of the future world his daughter is entering. He hears the "sea-wind scream" and worries about the "frenzied drum" that the future seems to be.
Nevertheless, images—description that uses any of the five senses of sight, sound, taste, touch, and smell—of a peaceful future for his daughter emerge later in the poem:
O may she live like some green laurel
Rooted in one dear perpetual place.