Born a proud and steadfast Irishman on June 13, 1865 in Sandymount, Republic of Ireland, William Butler Yeats spent his life seeking his very own breed of perfection he sought it in women, in mysticism, in his country and apparently he found it in his writing. An author of an ever evolving and growing style that ranged from an early love of Irish mythology and the occult resulted in slow paced, balladic poetry reminiscent of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood he so admired to a later development of a more original style that was pragmatic and substantial. He sought after all that he personally found beautiful including the ever elusive Maud Gonne and even her daughter. A Nobel prize winner, lesser known lover of theater, and Nationalist senator for the Irish Free State for a total of two terms, William Butler Yeats life was the story of which pieces reflected in his poetry, if you wish to read more about his failed romances, adventures in politics or influential childhood please refer back to my earlier posts linked below. Master of hyperboles and romanticized declarations of affection William Butler Yeats, is forever the naive lover caught up in his adoration of another(usually a woman). He has dictated yet another story of lustful devotion to a woman, or greatly respected official. The Irish poet incorporates both his yearning for women who will never crave him in return, and his great ardor for mysticism into his writing, constituting a cavaliering, yet still strikingly beautiful collaboration of egotism and controlled fervor. Yeats is a master craftsmen assured of the outcome of his every literary choice, his work never fails to feel meticulous and proudly constructed even if it is often well aware of it’s own superiority. A quality which somewhat diminishes its rarity and charismatic charm, Yeats’s words are self-assured to a point where though they are definitely lovely they have a quality of rather bothersome prestige. So in his lop-sided portrait of venerated love Yeats comes off as both capable and talented, but also arrogantly pompous and condemning. “He Wishes for Cloths of Heaven” is an accomplishment of a well tuned tongue, and artful pen, but it resonates no deeper that it’s visual words which often seem overly expressive to a point where they exceed reality and instead feel gloriously fictional as a fairy-tale romance, their impression is neither lastingly wistful nor heartbreaking, and our recovery as the reader seems as swift of the speaker’s as transition spiffily from line to line, ending not in a plea but an order. | “He Wishes for Cloths of Heaven” William Butler Yeats 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. |
In “He Wishes for Cloths of Heaven,” Yeats takes on the mentality of an impoverished, but devout friend, servant, follower or lover having nought but his aspirations and hopes for a better future lays down not items or gifts of material beauty but swears as he is unable to physically give he will give from his soul and sacrifice his dreams in order to fulfill the wishes of his master or complete the tasks he has been assigned. Yeats speaks of giving all that he is able. Yeats’s speaker doesn’t just claim to give in to the task he does so with faithful willingness, he boasts of a loyalty incomparable. Perhaps, this statement is an allusion to a society where “material pleasures” are godly acquisitions reserved for those of wealth and power only, making Yeats’s protagonist who seems to be of a lower social class unable to give gifts of grandeur without significant losses. In entrusting his faith in a “higher power” Yeats gives away a degree of his own freedom. Unable to spare items of material value, he is left with nothing to give to please this higher power but his time, manual labor, quality of life, maybe even his daughters or family. In the verisimilitude of such truth we see that this “royalty” of sorts is essentially in control of this man’s dreams or the very least his ability to achieve them. It is only natural that one in such a position would wish for tangible possession so that things so personally would never have to bared before the whims of someone else, yet this is only a wish and he’s hopes for a more opulent existence are left only as exaggerated dreams. As all men lust after what they cannot have. Yeats utilizes the symbology of generations of cultures to give depth to the meaning of these cloths, transforming them into an object of jaw dropping splendor in the eyes of his speaker. These cloths: embroidered and bursting with scintillating regality, capable of bringing about the day and night, so beyond him they reek of mystery and strength. In his eyes these cloths are mystical items in and of themselves made of “The blue and the dim and the dark” perhaps blue is symbolic of masculinity, royalty or stability a vivid contrast to the awe-inspiring mysticism and obscurity that is the dim, where the dark is far deeper than both ominous and filled with irrevocable power, like the transition from dusk to night, clarity to ambiguity the sky fades feel so much closer and more intimate in its sinister darkness. But despite this description these cloths are simultaneously not just “Of night” but of “light and the half-light” as well. They are day and dusk, dawn and night all at once and yet all the parts remain separate and distinguishable. They aren’t just black or white, yet neither are they grey. It would seem that these cloths of heaven are beyond human description and certainly beyond human creation. It seems strange that something as mundane as fancy fabric should be glorified in such a way, and regarded with such divine reverence when it has always been an essential aspect of religion to transcend the physical world. So maybe Yeats is instead alluding to the spiritual nature of heaven’s gifts, if this man could receive holy cloth to place upon the feet of the one he so reveres he would, but the “almighty” does not work in such trivial ways. He instead gives something far more potent than textiles; hopes and dreams, incorporeal assertions and beliefs, never anything that is concrete enough to be held in human hands. So this compositions hero is left to bare his fragile visions before him, out where are sure to be crushed by reality.
But perchance this was not the intended meaning of William Butler Yeats’s poem at all, perhaps these celestial feet don’t belong to a god or king or a man at all but instead a woman. Yeats, indignant, yet ever the hopeless romantic asserts he has no corporeal gifts to offer, and is only capable of giving his thoughts, fantasies and ideas before unto her, giving her the full responsibility of being the keeper of his aspiration resting what must be an incredible burden upon her shoulder though she never asked for such a moral burden with only the vague assurance that she herself is one. So in his act of apparently selfless generosity and naive adoration he has become more selfish than he could have been in any other scenario, he has piled upon his the woman the entire guilt of his happiness and somehow expect her to be grateful or flatter, the thought is less touching and more egotistical.
“He Wishes for Cloths of Heaven,” leaves much to interpretation, yet having been so adroitly and beguilingly written, we as the reader are made to feel of such consequence in the action of reading it, that we share an experience that must be the same as philosophers do in theorizing the fate of humanity or demise of the earth. An immense emotion is synthetically conceived inside of us, that what we should ponder is not a simple amorous verse but an allegorical key to the universe. Yeats has composed with such eloquence and articulation that his every word has the impression of heavy connotation. Far too serious for rhymes, Yeats chooses repetition to lend emphasis and rhythm to his poetry pulling it all together with contemporary language and skillful punctuation. William Butler Yeats for all its apparent shallowness, is a guilty pleasure in it’s ability to make its audience feel important simply to hear it.