Aedh 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 clothsOf 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.
About this text
Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Wind Among the Reeds, Project Gutenberg ebook #32233; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: W. B. Yeats, Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven, in The Wind Among the Reeds (1899), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #32233, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/yeats-wind-among-reeds/aedh-wishes-for-the-cloths-of-heaven.html, id L04548.
Form and metre
Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven is 8 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABABCDCD. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 77%). 85% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 9.0 syllables. 12% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in iambic pentameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 ABABCDCD clothsA · lightB · clothsA · lightB · feetC · dreamsD · feetC · dreamsD
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against iambic pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths, | 9 | ···/˘˘/˘· |
| Enwrought with golden and silver light, | 9 | ···/˘·/˘· |
| The blue and the dim and the dark cloths | 9 | ········· |
| Of night and light and the half light, | 8 | ········ |
| I would spread the cloths under your feet: | 9 | ········· |
| But I, being poor, have only my dreams; | 9 | ··/··/˘·· |
| I have spread my dreams under your feet; | 9 | ········· |
| Tread softly because you tread on my dreams. | 10 | ·/˘······· |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.