NOTES: For Anne Gregory

Introduction
The poem is in a form of dialogue between two people, Anne Gregory and another is identified
as speaker. It could be anyone i.e. Anne’s lover or a friend or the poet himself. The poem is
about perception of love by different people.
Summary
In this poem, a young man discusses why a person falls in love, i.e what determines it.
According to them, a person is not loved for his basic nature but because of his/her physical
feature, i.e. outward physical appearance. It is not possible to love one for oneself. Only God can
do so.
In this poem, the poet addresses young Gregory and tells her that her hair is of the same colour as
honey and when it falls, the poet begins to think of her beauty being spell bound. Her hair is so
beautiful that every man falls in love with her.
At this, Gregory gives response to the poet that man loves her only for her outward beauty while
this outward appearance may change at any time. At this, the poet proclaims it a truth since time
immemorial that man cannot easily judge a woman other than her looks. He tells Anne that she
can never be ugly inward or outward even if she wishes to be so.

Explanation
Never shall a young man
thrown into despair
By those great honey coloured
Ramparts at your ear
Love you for yourself alone
And not your yellow hair
Explanation: The speaker, addressing Anne Gregory, says that her beautiful honey-coloured
hair can make any man fall in love with her. This love is not for Anne but for her beautiful
external features. Her beautiful hair is compared to wall, symbolising outer beauty. This beauty
can capture any man’s attention. But he
may not be able to look beyond that into Anne’s character. So the speaker says that no one can
love Anne, for what she is. One can love her only for her beautiful yellow hair and her physical
beauty.

But I can get a hair-dye

And set such colour there,
Brown or black, or carrot,
That young men in despair
May love me for myself alone
And not my yellow hair
Explanation: In this stanza Anne replies to the speaker that she can change the colour of her
beautiful hair and dye them in black, brown or carrot. She wants to tell the speaker that anyone
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falling in love with her must see the actual person behind the beauty. She thinks that young men,
who fall in love with her, must
love her for what she is and not for her yellow hair.

“I heard an old religious man

But yesternight declare
That only God, my dear,
Could love you for yourself alone
And not your yellow hair.”
Explanation: In the last stanza, the speaker replies to Anne about the importance of love for
internal beauty not the external one. The speaker talks about an old religious man, who
announced that he had found a text in which it is written that only God is capable of looking
beyond external beauty. He means that humans do not have the insight and understanding to look
into the soul of a person. They are swayed away by the glitter of outer beauty. Therefore, only
God can love Anne only for herself and not for her beauty.

Extract Based Questions

Read the following extracts carefully and answer the questions that follow.
Question 1.
“Never shall a young man, Thrown into despair By those great honey-coloured Ramparts at your
ear, Love you for yourself alone And not your yellow hair.”
(a) What does ‘ramparts’ mean?
(b) What is the colour of Anne’s hair?
(c) What does the poet mean by, “love you for yourself alone and not your yellow hair”?
(d) What does ‘despair’ mean in the stanza?
Answer:
(a) Ramparts refers to wall that protects a fort. Here, it has been used metaphorically to mean the
lock of hair around her ear.
(b) Anne’s hair are honey-coloured.
(c) The poet means that young men love Anne for her beautiful looks and not for her real
character.
(d) Despair means hopelessness.

Question 2.
“But I can get a hair-dye And set such colour there, Brown, or black, or carrot, That young men
in despair May love me for myself alone And not my yellow hair.”
(a) Who is the speaker of these lines?
(b) Why does Anne say that she can change her hair colour?
(c) Which word in the stanza means ‘colour’?
(d) What is the rhyming scheme adopted in this stanza?
Answer:
(a) The speaker of these lines is Anne Gregory.
(b) Anne says that she can change her hair colour to show that external beauty is not real and
permanent.
(c) The word is Dye.
(d) The rhyming scheme adopted in this stanza is abcbdb.

Question 3.
“I heard an old religious man But yesternight declare That he had found a text to prove That only
God, my dear, Could love you for yourself alone And not your yellow hair.”
(a) Who had found a ‘text’?

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(b) What does the text prove?
(c) What does ‘yesternight’ mean?
(d) Find a word from the passage which is an antonym of ‘concial or hide’.
Answer:
(a) An old religious man had found a text.
(b) The text proves that only God is capable of looking beyond external beauty, into the soul of a
person.
(c) Yesternight means last night.
(d) The antonym is ‘declare’

TEXTUAL QUESTION

Question 1.
What does the young man mean by “great honey-coloued /Ramparts at your ear?” Why
does he say that young men are “thrown into despair” by them?

Answer: The young man in the poem praises the great honey-colored hair of Anne. Anne’s hair has
been called rampart, meaning a wall. It is called so because they act as a wall, as they prevent young
men from looking beyond that yellow hair and into her soul. Her hair is so attractive that young
men cannot look at anything else. Anne’s yellow hair is so pretty that young men hopelessly fall
in love with her. She is so pretty that everyone wants her, which cannot happen; hence, they are
thrown into despair.

Question 2.
What colour is the young woman’s hair? What does she say she can change it td? Why
would she want to do so?

Answer: Anne s hair are yellow, like the colour of honey. She says that she can change it to black,
brown or carrot; she means that she can change it to any colour she wants. Anne says so to show that
outer beauty is changeable and not permanent or real. She wants young men to look in her soul
and love her for her inner beauty. In order to do so, she needs to show them the superficiality of
her external beauty.
Poetic Devices in for Anne Gregory:
Rhyme scheme:
If we divide this poem of 18 lines into 3 units of 6 lines each, then each of these units will be
found to follow the same simple rhyme scheme, that is, ABCBDB.

Apostrophe:
This rhetorical device is used when a poet addresses his or her poem to an absent audience. In
this poem, the poet follows the device of the apostrophe as he is addressing himself to Anne
Gregory, but we the readers never see her at any point in the poem.

Metaphor:
This rhetorical device is used when a covert comparison is made between two different things or
ideas. In this poem, the poet uses the device of metaphor on the 4th line when he compares Anne
Gregory’s hair with the ramparts of a castle. Like the ramparts, her hair also protects her face
from being seen fully.

Metonymy:

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This rhetorical device consists of the substitution of the name of an attribute or adjunct for that of
the thing meant. In this poem, the poet uses the device of metonymy in the 9th line when he uses
the word “carrot” to mean the color orange while making suggestions about what color she can
dye her hair.

Compound Words:
Compound words are formed by adding two words into a single one when normally those words
are not used together. In this poem, the poet uses the device of the compound word in the
14th line when he combines the words “yesterday” and “night” to create the word “yesternight”.

Central Idea of for Anne Gregory:

In this poem, the poet describes a conversation between himself and Lady Gregory’s grand-
daughter named Anne Gregory. He tells Anne that her yellow hair is beautiful and that all the
young men who claim to be in love with her love her for that hair. In other words, all men love
her for her outward appearance and not for her inner beauty. Anne then replies to the poet saying
that she can easily dye her hair black or brown or orange, and then she would look ugly. If she
looked ugly, then perhaps some man would look beyond her appearance and see her for who she
really is on the inside. However, the poet quickly assures her that no such thing will happen. It is
a universal truth that men always judge women on their physical appearance alone. Besides, even
if Anne wants to look ugly, she cannot do so for she is a beautiful person on the inside.

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