# He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven analysis

He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven — W. B. Yeats (1899)

This analysis explains how Yeats turns heavenly fabric into a fragile offering of dreams.

Full text from [He wishes for the Cloths of Heaven](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/He_wishes_for_the_Cloths_of_Heaven). Public domain in the US (First published in The Wind Among the Reeds in 1899, before the US public-domain cutoff.).

## Summary

The speaker imagines giving a beloved the sky as embroidered cloth, then admits that poverty leaves only dreams to offer.[2]

```
Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
```

The repeated image of spreading something beneath the beloved’s feet becomes a plea for emotional care.[2]

## Meaning and interpretation

Dreams are less tangible than wealth but more personal than any material gift. The speaker offers the inner life that produced the vision.[2]

```
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
```

The final imperative makes love vulnerable: accepting the gift gives the beloved power to hurt the speaker.[2]

## Themes

### Love and vulnerability

The closing plea asks the beloved to handle the speaker’s exposed dreams gently.

### Imagination and poverty

Material lack redirects the gift toward imagination and feeling.

### Idealization

The beloved is placed above cloths made from the heavens, giving devotion a near-sacred scale.

## Form and meter

The poem is a single eight-line stanza divided into two quatrains by its ABAB CDCD rhyme pattern.[3]

Loose four-beat accentual verse and repeated end words make the short poem feel tightly woven rather than mechanically regular.[3]

## Literary devices

### Extended metaphor

```
Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths
```

The sky becomes fabric that can be embroidered and spread beneath the beloved.

### Visual imagery

```
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
```

Gradations of light create a whole imagined sky.

### Repetition

```
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
```

The shift from hypothetical cloths to actual dreams changes fantasy into an offering.

## Historical context

Yeats published the poem in The Wind Among the Reeds in 1899; the earlier title was “Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven.”[3]

The Academy of American Poets records Joseph Hone’s remark that this poem was “the way to lose” a lady, a comment that underscores its vulnerable rather than triumphant courtship.[4]

## What critics say

> “Love, this short but powerful poem suggests, can feel at once transcendently beautiful and perilous.”
>
> — [LitCharts](https://www.litcharts.com/poetry/william-butler-yeats/he-wishes-for-the-cloths-of-heaven)

> “Aedh wishes for the Cloths of Heaven is the way to lose one.”
>
> — [Academy of American Poets](https://poets.org/poem/aedh-wishes-cloths-heaven)

## Common questions

### What is the poem’s meaning?

The speaker offers dreams instead of the heavenly riches he imagines and asks the beloved to treat them gently.

### What are its themes?

Love, vulnerability, imagination, poverty, and idealization.

### What form does it use?

One eight-line stanza with an ABAB CDCD rhyme pattern and loose four-beat rhythm.

## References

- [Wikisource](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/He_wishes_for_the_Cloths_of_Heaven)

- [LitCharts](https://www.litcharts.com/poetry/william-butler-yeats/he-wishes-for-the-cloths-of-heaven)

- [LitCharts](https://www.litcharts.com/poetry/william-butler-yeats/he-wishes-for-the-cloths-of-heaven)

- [Academy of American Poets](https://poets.org/poem/aedh-wishes-cloths-heaven)

## Open the editor

Write with this poem’s rhythm in the editor: https://lyriic.com/write