“For My Daughter” by Weldon Kees (1940) Some people come into our life as blessings. Some come in your life as lessons. These words from Mother Theresa describe Weldon Kees poem For My Daughter written in the 1940’s which is the time of World War II. Throughout this war people have lived in a time when medicine was not very developed, and frequently children fell upon bad circumstances because of their situation. You can obviously tell from the opening of this poem that the speaker is talking about his daughter and certain that his daughter is basically destined to have a forbidding life with no future. However, in the very last line of the poem he acknowledges that he has no daughter and his desire none and that puts a whole new twist on the poem. The first three lines the speaker introduce and describes his daughter. “Looking into my daughters eyes I read” “Beneath the innocence of morning flesh” “Concealed, hinting’s of death she does not heed.” (Kees, 384 lines 1, 2 and 3). Judging by these lines, I would describe this when he looks at his daughter, he sees a very young and naïve little girl, who doesn’t know what is going on around her. Nonetheless, the speaker is telling us that his daughter is apparently sick with some sort of disease and not in a good state and probably dying and this is the speaker meaning when he concealed the death she does not heed. “Coldest of winds have blown this hair, and mesh” “Of seaweed snarled these miniatures