He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven by W. B. Yeats

Full Text

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

Overview

In just eight lines, Yeats offers his beloved the only gift a poor poet can give — his dreams — and asks her to step gently on them. The poem is a distillation of vulnerability and devotion.

Line-by-Line Analysis

Lines 1-4

The speaker imagines possessing the sky itself — fabrics woven from light, darkness, and twilight — as a gift fit for his beloved.

Lines 5-6

The conditional gives way to reality: he would lay the heavens at her feet, but being poor, he can only offer dreams.

Lines 7-8

The dreams are already spread beneath her. The final plea — "Tread softly" — is both humble and urgent, acknowledging how easily dreams can be crushed.

Themes

• Love
• Vulnerability
• Poverty and devotion
• Dreams
• The poet's gift

Literary Devices

Imagery

Enwrought with golden and silver light — The heavens are imagined as richly embroidered fabric, merging the celestial with the tactile.

Repetition

cloths — The word "cloths" appears three times, binding the celestial gift to the earthly act of spreading something underfoot.

Tricolon

The blue and the dim and the dark cloths — The three adjectives create a progression from daylight through twilight into night, covering all conditions of the sky.

Volta

But I, being poor, have only my dreams — The pivot from hypothetical wealth to actual poverty is the emotional hinge of the poem.

Historical Context

Written for Maud Gonne during Yeats's most intensely romantic period. The poem appeared in The Wind Among the Reeds (1899), a collection steeped in Celtic mysticism and personal longing. It has become one of the most quoted love poems in the English language.