For Anne Gregory | CBSE Class 10 English Notes

This note covers William Butler Yeats's poem "For Anne Gregory": a stanza-by-stanza summary, the poetic devices used, the main themes, key quotations and answers to the textbook questions.

Who wrote "For Anne Gregory" and what is the poem about?

The poem is written by William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), an Irish poet described in the chapter as an Irish nationalist who was educated in London and Dublin and was interested in folklore and mythology. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923.

"For Anne Gregory" is set up, in the chapter's own introductory line, as "a conversation between a young man and a young woman", and students are asked to work out "what are they arguing about".

The poem has three six-line stanzas and moves through three distinct voices: a young man, a young woman and, reported within the young man's final speech, an old religious man.

At the centre of the poem is a question about whether a person can ever be loved "for themselves alone", apart from their looks, or whether all human love is really a response to some outward quality, here the young woman's yellow hair.

What happens in the poem, stanza by stanza?

The poem unfolds as a short argument between two young people, resolved only by a third, reported voice. Each of its three stanzas is spoken by a different speaker and each one ends with a close variation of the same six words, "for yourself alone / And not your yellow hair", so that the whole poem circles around a single disputed claim about love.

Stanza one: the young man's claim

The young man opens the poem with a firm prediction: "Never shall a young man" love the young woman for herself alone. He says men are "thrown into despair" by her "great honey-coloured / Ramparts at your ear", meaning her striking yellow hair framing her face like a fortress wall.

His claim is absolute rather than cautious: he insists that any man who loves her will really be loving her hair, "And not your yellow hair" being the one thing he is certain can never be separated from being loved for herself. He states this as settled fact, leaving the young woman no room to agree gradually; she must either accept his view or answer it directly.

Stanza two: the young woman's response

The young woman answers practically rather than emotionally. She says "I can get a hair-dye / And set such colour there", naming brown, black or carrot as possible new shades for her hair.

Her reasoning is that if her hair no longer causes men's "despair", then any young man who still loves her afterwards must love her "for myself alone / And not my yellow hair". She proposes a simple, concrete experiment to settle the argument rather than merely disputing the young man's logic in words, turning his claim into something that could, in principle, be tested.

Stanza three: the old religious man's verdict

The young man reports what "an old religious man" told him "but yesternight": that he "had found a text to prove" that only God can love a person "for yourself alone / And not your yellow hair".

The final stanza therefore does not settle the couple's dispute between themselves; it brings in a third, religious voice who insists that no human being is capable of the selfless love the young woman imagines, however she dyes her hair, leaving her proposed test unanswered within the poem itself.

Who are the speakers in the poem?

The young man

The young man opens and closes the poem. He begins with a confident, almost teasing claim that young men only love Anne Gregory for her "honey-coloured" hair, and he ends by quoting a religious authority to back up his original position, so that his view of love as conditional on appearance remains unchallenged by the end of the poem.

The young woman

The young woman speaks only in the second stanza, but her reply is the pivot of the whole poem.

She does not deny that her hair draws attention; instead she offers a practical test, a hair-dye, to see whether love can survive the loss of the very quality the young man has praised.

The old religious man

The old religious man never speaks directly in the poem; he is quoted secondhand by the young man. He introduces a theological argument, that only God loves a person "for yourself alone", which widens the poem from a lovers' quarrel into a comment on the limits of human affection generally.

What poetic devices does the poet use in this poem?

The poem is built as a short dialogue rather than a single speaking voice, which lets Yeats stage an argument instead of simply stating an opinion. Each of the three stanzas gives one speaker, or one reported speaker, the floor in turn.

Yeats uses a metaphor in calling the young woman's hair "great honey-coloured / Ramparts at your ear".

A rampart is a high defensive wall around a fort; comparing her hair to ramparts suggests it is something that besieges or traps young men, as if her beauty were a fortification that captures admirers against their will.

The poem has a regular, song-like structure: lines two, four and six of each stanza rhyme or near-rhyme with each other, for example "despair", "ear" and "hair" in the first stanza, giving the argument a steady, almost ballad-like rhythm despite the serious question underneath it.

There is also deliberate repetition with variation: each stanza ends with a close echo of "for yourself alone / And not your yellow hair", changing only the pronoun and verb each time ("Love you", "love me", "Could love you"), which keeps returning the argument to the same unresolved point.

Finally, the young man's closing speech works as an allusion to religious authority: quoting "an old religious man" and his "text" lends his claim a weight of tradition and belief rather than personal opinion alone.

What is the significance of the "honey-coloured ramparts"?

The phrase "great honey-coloured / Ramparts at your ear" is the central image around which the whole poem turns. "Honey-coloured" describes the warm golden-yellow shade of the young woman's hair, while "ramparts" are, as the chapter's own glossary explains, "the high, wide walls around a castle or fort, for example, the ramparts of the Red Fort".

By calling her hair a rampart, the young man suggests it is not merely decorative but almost architectural in its effect: it surrounds her face the way a wall surrounds a fort, and, like a fort's defences, it has the power to keep young men "thrown into despair" outside, unable to win through to loving her for anything other than that hair.

The image therefore carries the young man's whole argument in miniature: physical beauty can be as commanding and as difficult to get past as a fortress wall, and he doubts any man's love can reach past it to the woman herself.

What does the young woman's reply reveal?

The young woman's answer is brisk and unsentimental. She does not argue with the young man's reasoning in the abstract; instead she proposes to remove the disputed cause, her "yellow hair", by means of a "hair-dye", changing it to "Brown, or black, or carrot".

Her stated purpose is clear: she wants young men "in despair" to be able to "love me for myself alone / And not my yellow hair".

This shows a woman who takes the young man's claim seriously enough to want to test it, rather than simply dismissing it or accepting it.

At the same time, her solution is limited to changing one physical feature for another; she does not, within the poem, propose any way of removing physical appearance from love altogether, which leaves room for the old religious man's later, more sweeping objection.

What does the old religious man's argument mean?

The young man closes the poem by reporting that "an old religious man" had told him, "but yesternight", that he had "found a text to prove" a particular point: "that only God, my dear, / Could love you for yourself alone / And not your yellow hair".

This argument moves the dispute onto new ground. Rather than debating whether a particular hair colour causes love, the religious man claims that no human being at all is capable of loving someone purely for themselves, without reference to any quality of theirs; only God's love is said to be unconditional in that sense.

Bringing in this third voice allows Yeats to end the poem without settling the lovers' quarrel.

The young woman's practical test from stanza two is left unanswered; instead the final word belongs to a view that makes the whole question of "loving for yourself alone" almost impossible for people to achieve.

What themes does the poem explore?

Can a person be loved "for themselves alone"?

This question runs through all three stanzas. The young man says no human love can do this, the young woman tries to test whether it is possible, and the old religious man insists that only God's love fits that description.

The poem does not give a final answer; it leaves the question open for the reader.

Physical beauty and attraction

The young woman's "yellow hair", described as "honey-coloured / Ramparts", stands for the physical qualities that draw people's attention and affection. The poem treats such beauty as powerful enough to "throw" young men "into despair", showing how strongly appearance can shape how people respond to one another.

Scepticism and practical testing

Rather than accepting the young man's claim or arguing about it in the abstract, the young woman proposes a concrete experiment, dyeing her hair, to see whether love survives the change. This reflects a practical, questioning attitude to a claim about human feeling.

The limits of human love compared to divine love

The old religious man's reported argument places a boundary around what human beings can feel: ordinary people, in his view, always love for some reason connected to the person's qualities, while only God is said to love "for yourself alone", without any such condition.

What are the key quotations from the poem?

"Love you for yourself alone / And not your yellow hair." — the young man, stanza one

"those great honey-coloured / Ramparts at your ear" — the young man describing the young woman's hair

"I can get a hair-dye / And set such colour there" — the young woman, stanza two

"Brown, or black, or carrot" — the young woman naming possible new hair colours

"May love me for myself alone / And not my yellow hair" — the young woman's hoped-for outcome

"I heard an old religious man / But yesternight declare" — the young man reporting a third voice, stanza three

"Could love you for yourself alone / And not your yellow hair" — the old religious man, as quoted by the young man

What are the answers to the textbook questions?

1. What does the young man mean by "great honey-coloured / Ramparts at your ear"? Why does he say that young men are "thrown into despair" by them? He means the young woman's golden-yellow hair, which frames her ears and face the way high fortress walls, or ramparts, surround a castle.

He calls young men "thrown into despair" because he believes her striking hair overwhelms them, making it impossible for them to love her for anything beyond that one quality.

2. What colour is the young woman's hair? What does she say she can change it to? Why would she want to do so? Her hair is yellow.

She says she can use a "hair-dye" to change it to "Brown, or black, or carrot".

She wants to do this to test the young man's claim: if men still love her once her yellow hair is gone, then, she reasons, they would be loving her "for myself alone / And not my yellow hair".

3. What qualities make objects desirable, and what would you emphasise to sell one? As the chapter's own examples suggest, with "a car, a phone, a dress", desirability often comes from features that are easy to notice at a glance: a car's speed or appearance, a phone's features, a dress's colour or fit.

Someone selling such an object would naturally emphasise these visible, attractive qualities, just as the young man emphasises the young woman's hair.

4. Do we love others for their qualities, or can someone be loved "for themselves alone"? The chapter invites discussion using its own examples: a parent's love for a newborn, or for a child who is challenged or gifted; the public's love for a film star, sportsperson, politician or social worker; one's own love for a friend or sibling; and the mutual love between a person and a pet.

Considering these cases together suggests that some love, such as a parent's for a very young child, seems to depend less on particular achievements or qualities than love for a public figure does, though complete separation of "the person" from their qualities is difficult to prove either way.

5. Can we separate "the person" from how they look, sound or walk, as in Yeats's question "how can we separate the dancer from the dance"? This question asks whether a person's outward qualities, their appearance, voice, manner, are so bound up with who they are that removing those qualities would also remove something of the person.

Thinking about how a friend or family member has changed over the years, and whether one's relationship with them changed too, helps to explore whether love follows the person or follows particular, changeable qualities.

Why does the poem end without resolving the argument?

The poem's three stanzas form an escalating argument rather than a story with a conclusion. The young man states his claim, the young woman proposes a test of it, and the old religious man's reported words shift the debate to a still larger claim about human love in general.

By ending on the religious man's view, that "only God" can love a person "for yourself alone", Yeats leaves the young woman's proposed hair-dye experiment untested within the poem itself.

The reader is left holding the same unresolved question the chapter's own opening line poses: what exactly are the two young people arguing about, and who, if anyone, is right?

This open ending suits a poem built from short, pointed stanzas: Yeats is less interested in settling the dispute than in showing, through three different voices, three different ways of thinking about whether love can ever be free of a person's outward qualities.

Why does Yeats bring in a religious voice at the end?

The old religious man is the only speaker in the poem who is reported rather than heard directly, which gives his claim a slightly removed, authoritative tone compared to the young couple's direct exchange.

His argument, built on a "text" he claims to have "found", shifts the discussion from a personal quarrel between two people to a general statement about human nature: that people inevitably love others partly because of their qualities, and that wholly unconditional love, loving someone "for yourself alone", belongs only to God.

Introducing this view lets the young man return to, and strengthen, his original position without having to answer the young woman's practical test directly. It also broadens the poem's scope beyond one couple's disagreement into a wider comment on love as such.

Glossary

• Ramparts — the high, wide walls around a castle or fort, used here as a metaphor for the young woman's hair.
• Despair — a complete loss of hope; here, the emotional state the young man says the young woman's hair causes in young men.
• Honey-coloured — having the warm golden-yellow colour of honey, used to describe the young woman's hair.
• Hair-dye — a substance used to change the natural colour of hair.
• Carrot — here, a reddish-orange hair colour, named after the vegetable of that colour.
• Religious man — a man devoted to religious belief, here one who claims to have found scriptural proof for his view of love.
• Text — a passage, especially from a religious book, quoted to support an argument.
• Nationalist — a person who strongly supports the independence, culture or identity of their own nation.
• Folklore — the traditional stories, customs and beliefs of a community, passed down orally over generations.
• Mythology — a collection of traditional myths belonging to a particular culture or religion.
• Nobel Prize — an international award given each year for outstanding achievement, including in literature.
• Stanza — a group of lines forming one unit of a poem, similar to a paragraph in prose.
• Allusion — a brief reference within a text to a person, idea or belief outside the text itself.
• Rhyme scheme — the pattern formed by rhyming words at the ends of lines in a poem.

Common errors and misconceptions

• Misconception: The poem has only two speakers. Correct: There are three voices: the young man, the young woman, and the old religious man, quoted within the young man's own speech.
• Misconception: The young woman agrees that love depends only on appearance. Correct: She challenges this by proposing to dye her hair precisely to test whether love can survive a change in appearance.
• Misconception: "Ramparts" refers to a real building in the poem. Correct: It is a metaphor comparing the young woman's hair to the walls of a fort.
• Misconception: The poem ends with the young man and young woman agreeing. Correct: The poem ends with a third, religious voice shifting the argument, without the couple reaching agreement.
• Misconception: The religious man speaks directly in the poem. Correct: His words are reported secondhand by the young man ("I heard an old religious man... declare").
• Misconception: The poem names three specific hair colours as the young woman's final choice. Correct: She only lists possible colours, "Brown, or black, or carrot", without choosing one.

Exam-style questions with model answers

Q1. What colour is the young woman's hair in the poem, and what does the young man call it? [2 marks]

1. Her hair is yellow.
2. The young man calls it "great honey-coloured / Ramparts at your ear".

Q2. Name the three possible new hair colours the young woman mentions. [2 marks]

1. Brown.
2. Black.
3. Carrot.

Q3. Describe the young woman's reply to the young man's claim, and explain what it suggests about her view of love and appearance. [4 marks]

1. She replies that she "can get a hair-dye" and change her hair's colour.
2. She names "Brown, or black, or carrot" as possible new colours.
3. Her aim is for young men "in despair" to then love her "for myself alone / And not my yellow hair".
4. This suggests she takes the young man's claim seriously enough to want to test it directly, rather than simply accepting or rejecting it; she treats love as something that can be investigated by changing the disputed quality.

Q4. What does the old religious man say about love, according to the young man, and what effect does his argument have on the poem? [4 marks]

1. The young man reports that "an old religious man" told him "but yesternight" that he had "found a text to prove" a claim about love.
2. The claim is "that only God, my dear, / Could love you for yourself alone / And not your yellow hair".
3. This widens the argument from one couple's dispute to a general statement about human love as a whole.
4. It leaves the young woman's proposed test, dyeing her hair, unanswered, so the poem ends without resolving the original disagreement.

Q5. "For Anne Gregory" explores whether a person can be loved for themselves alone, apart from any physical quality. Discuss this theme with reference to the three speakers in the poem. [6 marks]

1. The young man opens the poem by insisting that "never shall a young man" love the young woman for herself alone, because he believes her "honey-coloured" hair, which he calls "ramparts", overwhelms any man who sees it.
2. He treats physical beauty as powerful enough to "throw" young men "into despair", making it, in his view, impossible to separate love for the person from love for her hair.
3. The young woman challenges this view practically rather than by argument alone: she proposes to use a "hair-dye" to change her hair to "Brown, or black, or carrot".
4. Her stated reasoning is that if men still love her after her yellow hair is gone, they would then love her "for myself alone", so her response treats the young man's claim as something that can be tested.
5. The old religious man, quoted secondhand by the young man, raises the stakes further by claiming that no human being at all can love "for yourself alone" without reference to some quality; only "God" can do so.
6. Because the poem ends on this religious claim rather than on the young woman's test being carried out, the theme is left open: the reader is shown three different positions, but no single one is confirmed as correct within the poem.

Q6. Who is the only speaker in the poem whose words are reported rather than heard directly, and by whom are they reported? [2 marks]

1. The old religious man is the only speaker whose words are reported rather than heard directly.
2. His words are reported by the young man, who says "I heard an old religious man / But yesternight declare".

Key takeaways

• The poem is a conversation between a young man and a young woman, with a third voice, an old religious man, reported in the final stanza.
• The young man claims young men can only love the young woman for her "honey-coloured" hair, calling it "ramparts" that trap them.
• The young woman offers to dye her hair "Brown, or black, or carrot" to test whether love can exist without her yellow hair.
• The old religious man's reported view is that only God, not any human being, can love a person "for yourself alone".
• The poem uses metaphor, near-rhyme and repeated refrains to build its argument across three six-line stanzas.
• The ending leaves the central question, whether love can exist apart from physical qualities, unresolved.
• Yeats, the poet, won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923 and was interested in Irish folklore and mythology.

Test yourself

What does the young man compare the young woman's hair to?

He compares it to "great honey-coloured / Ramparts", the high walls of a fort, suggesting it has a powerful, almost fortress-like effect on young men.

What practical solution does the young woman propose?

She proposes using a "hair-dye" to change her yellow hair to brown, black or carrot, so she can test whether men would still love her.

Who is said to be the only one capable of loving someone "for yourself alone"?

According to the old religious man, as reported by the young man, only God can love a person "for yourself alone".

How many stanzas does the poem have, and who speaks in each?

Three stanzas: the young man speaks first, the young woman replies in the second, and the young man speaks again, quoting the old religious man, in the third.

What prize did William Butler Yeats win, and when?

He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923.

Does the poem resolve the argument between the young man and the young woman?

No, the poem ends with the religious man's claim rather than with the dispute being settled between the couple.

What interests of Yeats does the chapter mention?

The chapter mentions his interest in folklore and mythology, alongside his role as an Irish nationalist.