I’ve never been a big fan of William Butler Yeats — from that period, Gerard Manley Hopkins is more to my taste — but this short poem pleases me. If you have ever been quietly, unselfishly and vulnerably in love with another person, you will know that he has captured the sensation exactly.
He wishes for the cloths of heaven
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.
No tedious cycles of history, sloughing beasts, or celtic blarney, here. Apparently, Yeats occasionally stepped off the cosmic merry-go-round to feel something in an ordinary way. Love is not a topic that poets of the twentieth century handled well. Too plebian, I guess. And it takes courage.
[Addendum: A reader informs me that Yeat’s poem is actually religious in nature, and not about love at all. He explained the references in the phrasing that identify it as actually being about contrition, repentance and “hidden evil”. *sigh* Why are poets attracted to such tedious nonsense? I guess it was to good to be true to think a twentieth century poet would be willing to address an issue that really matters, and requires real thought, rather than the endless re-arrangement of inane religious twaddle.]
0 Comments.