He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven

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

1. Recall – Form & Length: How long is "He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven," and in what collection was it first published? In what year did it appear?

1. Recall – Speaker & Occasion: Who inspired Yeats to write this poem, and what was the nature of their real-life relationship?

1. Recall – Key Image: What does the speaker imagine the night sky to be in the opening of the poem, and what two precious materials are woven into it?

1. Recall – Symbols: What three gradations of light or sky-darkness does Yeats move through in the poem, and what do these gradations symbolize according to the analysis?

1. Comprehension – Turning Point: At what structural moment does the poem shift from an imagined gift to the speaker's actual reality, and what word signals this shift?

1. Comprehension – The Gift of Dreams: Because the speaker lacks material wealth, what does he offer instead, and why does this make him feel vulnerable?

1. Comprehension – The Final Request: What does the speaker ask of the person he loves at the poem's close, and why does the analysis describe this request as "subtly heartbreaking" rather than dramatic?

1. Analysis – Tone: How would you characterize the overall tone of "He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven"? Use at least two details from the analysis to support your answer.

1. Analysis – Symbol of Feet/Treading: What does the image of feet and treading represent in the poem, and what does it suggest about the nature of love?

1. Analysis – Context & Movement: How does the Celtic Twilight movement, which Yeats helped shape, influence the imagery and mood of this poem?

Answer Key

1. The poem is very short (eight lines). It was published in the collection The Wind Among the Reeds in 1899.

1. The poem was likely inspired by Maud Gonne, an Irish revolutionary and actress. Yeats held an obsessive, unrequited love for her over decades, and she repeatedly rejected his marriage proposals.

1. The speaker imagines the night sky as a lavishly embroidered cloth or fabric. It is interwoven with gold (starlight) and silver (moonlight), representing precious, unattainable beauty.

1. Yeats moves through the deep blue of dusk, the dim murk of twilight, and the full dark of night. These gradations symbolize the varying moods of love: bright joy, uncertain longing, and the shadowy fear of loss.

1. The shift occurs mid-poem, marked by the word but, which returns the speaker from his rich fantasy to his actual, powerless reality.

1. He offers his dreams — his entire inner world of hopes, imagination, and capacity to love. This is vulnerable because dreams, once shared, can be carelessly destroyed by another person.

1. He asks the beloved to tread lightly upon his dreams. The analysis calls it subtly heartbreaking because it is delivered not as a dramatic plea but as a quiet, intimate request — gentle rather than desperate.

1. The tone is tender and quietly vulnerable. Evidence: the analysis notes there is no anger or bitterness, only a "quiet ache," and describes the final line as a "soft request exchanged between two people standing close together," maintaining a hushed register throughout.

1. Feet represent a careless kind of power — the ability to crush something, often without intending to. It suggests that love requires active gentleness, not merely the passive absence of cruelty.

1. The Celtic Twilight movement embraced dreamlike imagery, mysticism, and a haunting melancholy, all of which are vividly present in the poem's symbolic night sky, gradations of half-light, and the foregrounding of dreams as a central image and theme.