For Anne Gregory (W. B. Yeats)
NCERT – Thinking about the Poem
Q1. What does the young man mean by the phrase “great honey-coloured / Ramparts at your ear”?
He means Anne’s long, golden hair falling round her face like protective walls (“ramparts”). It’s a vivid image of her physical beauty.
Q2. Why does the poet suggest the young man cannot love her “for herself alone”?
Because he is overwhelmed by outward beauty (her yellow hair). His love is swayed by appearance, not the inner self.
Q3. What does Anne say she can do to make young men “love me for myself alone / And not my yellow hair”?
She says she could dye her hair brown, black, or carrot-red — showing how superficial beauty can be changed and shouldn’t be the basis of love.
Q4. What is the meaning of “But only God, my dear, / Could love you for yourself alone / And not your yellow hair”?
Human love is usually mixed with attraction to appearance; only divine love is completely unconditional, directed to the true self beyond looks.
Q5. What view of love does the poem finally endorse — human or divine?
It contrasts them to urge a higher (near-divine) ideal: love that values the person beyond surface charms, even while admitting human love often falls short.
Extra Questions & Answers (Poem)
Short
1) What’s the poem’s central contrast?
Outer beauty vs. inner self — and human attraction vs. unconditional (divine) love.
2) How does dyeing hair work as an argument?
If beauty can be altered so easily, it’s a weak foundation for true love.
3) Tone of the poem?
Gentle, teasing, conversational — but philosophical underneath.
Long
Q. Examine Yeats’s use of irony to critique love based on appearance.
Yeats frames a playful dialogue to expose a serious irony: while suitors swear eternal love, it is often the “honey-coloured ramparts” — the hair — that captivates them. Anne deftly undercuts this by pointing out she can dye her hair any colour, proving how flimsy such love is if it hinges on mutable features. In the closing turn, the speaker cites a “text in learned books” that only God can love a person “for yourself alone,” setting human love against an ideal of unconditional regard. The irony works on two levels: it mocks superficial infatuation and, at the same time, gently concedes that most human affection does begin with the senses. Yeats’s light touch, simple diction, and repeated contrast keep the poem accessible while his final claim elevates the discussion, urging readers to seek a love that recognises and cherishes the enduring self beyond appearance.
Summary of For Anne Gregory
Yeats stages a witty conversation to probe what love truly values. A young admirer praises Anne Gregory’s “great honey-coloured ramparts” — her golden hair — a synecdoche for her external beauty. The speaker doubts that any young man could look past such allure to love her “for herself alone.” Anne counters with a practical, devastating point: she could dye her hair brown, black, or carrot-red. If appearance is so easily altered, it cannot be the rightful ground of lasting love. She wants to be loved for who she is, not for a changeable feature.
In the final stanza the voice shifts: a “man in some scholars’ store” has found in sacred texts that “only God” can love a person purely for the self and not for the hair. With this, Yeats juxtaposes fallible human love, drawn to surfaces, with an ideal, unconditional love associated with the divine. The poem’s charm is in its playful tone and colloquial phrasing; its depth lies in the philosophical punchline that challenges readers to examine their own motives in love.
Thus, through a light, teasing exchange Yeats delivers a serious reflection: while desire and beauty may ignite affection, a love worthy of the name must seek the enduring person beneath outward attractions. The poem becomes a compact meditation on appearance, identity, and the aspiration toward a purer love.
Biography: W. B. Yeats
William Butler Yeats (1865–1939) was an Irish poet and dramatist, a towering figure of 20th-century literature and a leader of the Irish Literary Revival. Born in Dublin and raised partly in Sligo, Yeats absorbed Irish folklore and myth, which would later infuse his poetry and plays. He co-founded the Abbey Theatre (1904) with Lady Gregory and J. M. Synge, shaping modern Irish drama.
Yeats’s early poetry is lyrical and symbolist, marked by musical cadences and romantic yearning (The Wind Among the Reeds, 1899). Over time, his style hardened into a spare, powerful idiom reflecting public themes — nationhood, aging, spiritual struggle — as in Responsibilities (1914) and The Tower (1928). His complicated lifelong attachment to Maud Gonne, actress and Irish nationalist, inspired many poems; later, his marriage to Georgie Hyde-Lees deepened his interest in mysticism and the occult, leading to the esoteric system behind A Vision (1925).
Politically engaged yet independent, Yeats served in the Irish Senate (1922–28). He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1923, cited for his “always inspired poetry” that gave voice to a nation. Among his most celebrated poems are “The Lake Isle of Innisfree,” “Easter 1916,” “Sailing to Byzantium,” “The Second Coming,” and “Among School Children.” His late work is remarkable for its vitality, tension, and aphoristic bite, compressing grand themes into memorable lines.
Formally adventurous yet rooted in tradition, Yeats blended folklore, personal myth, philosophy, and politics into a distinctive, resonant voice. He died in 1939 at Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, France; his remains were reinterred in Drumcliff, County Sligo, honoring his famous line, “Under bare Ben Bulben’s head.” Yeats endures as a poet of exquisite craft and visionary scope, exploring the uneasy marriage of passion and wisdom, body and soul — and, as in “For Anne Gregory,” the human longing for a love that sees beyond appearances.