He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven by William Butler Yeats
This man is describing the most beautiful things he can think of. Heaven is often considered the ultimate reward, so “heavens embroidered cloths,” would be more beautiful than anything this person has ever seen.
Here he describes how he loves this person so much that he would give away this valuable cloth filled with all his dreams and hopes. 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 sofly because you tread on my dreams.
The most important poetry element in this piece is symbolism. These cloths symbolize the narrator’s love. He describes the cloths beautifully, because that’s what his love is. He also uses repetition with the word
“light” as well as the word “dreams.” This shows that these are important words in the poem that should be paid attention to. The poem is about his
“dreams” and the “light” that his dreams could become. Yeats was able to show that you don’t need to have money to have love. He demonstrated what true love is all about.
He then goes on to describe what the cloths may look like. Gold and silver are worth large sums of money, so this makes the cloths, or his love, rare and valuable.
The narrator doesn’t have these beautiful cloths because he
