‘How young it is, how young!’
And made a golden cradle
That on a willow swung.
‘He went away,’ my mother sang,
‘When I was brought to bed,’
And all the while her needle pulled
The gold and silver thread.
She pulled the thread and bit the thread
And made a golden gown,
And wept because she had dreamt that I
Was born to wear a crown.
‘When she was got,’ my mother sang,
I heard a sea-mew cry,
And saw a flake of the yellow foam
That dropped upon my thigh.’
How therefore could she help but braid
The gold into my hair,
And dream that I should carry
The golden top of care?
Poem Analysis:
William Butler Yeats’s “A Song from The Player Queen” is a lyrical poem that explores motherhood, destiny, and the burden of expectations. Through the voice of a mother singing about her child’s birth and future, Yeats creates a world in which love is closely connected with dreams of greatness and power. The poem also suggests that what appears to be a blessing—the promise of a crown—may become a heavy responsibility.
The poem begins with an image of tenderness: “My mother dandled me and sang.” The mother rocks her child in a “golden cradle” suspended from a willow. The repeated references to gold immediately establish an atmosphere of beauty, wealth, and royalty. However, gold also becomes a symbol of the expectations placed upon the child. The mother does not simply love her daughter; she imagines a magnificent future for her.
The mother’s absence of the father is also significant. She sings, “He went away … / When I was brought to bed,” suggesting that the child’s birth is marked by separation and loss. While sewing a golden gown, the mother dreams that her child was “born to wear a crown.” The gown and crown symbolize not only royal status but also the destiny the mother has constructed for her daughter. Her tears reveal that this dream is emotionally powerful and perhaps painful.
Yeats also uses striking natural imagery. The “sea-mew,” or seagull, and the “yellow foam” connect the child’s birth with the sea and the natural world. The mysterious image of the foam falling upon the child’s thigh gives the birth an almost mythical quality. It suggests that the child’s destiny is not entirely ordinary but is somehow announced or shaped by forces beyond human control.
The final lines are especially important: “How therefore could she help but braid / The gold into my hair, / And dream that I should carry / The golden top of care?” The phrase “golden top of care” creates an important paradox. Gold normally represents happiness, success, and privilege, while “care” suggests anxiety, responsibility, and suffering. Yeats therefore presents royalty as a double-edged condition. To possess the crown is also to carry its burdens.
The poem’s musical quality reinforces its connection with a mother’s song. Its repetition, simple diction, and regular rhythm make it sound like a traditional lullaby or folk song. Yet beneath this apparently gentle surface lies a deeper meditation on fate, ambition, and the burden of inherited expectations.
Yeats suggests that a crown is not merely an ornament of glory. It can become a weight placed upon an individual before that person is even capable of choosing it. The mother’s loving dreams thus contain both tenderness and tragedy: she gives her child a golden future in imagination, but that future may also become a “golden” burden of care.