Tread Softly // W.B. 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

W.B. Yeats

Yeats is a great poet, his piece Tread Softly is one of his best.

It has a certain mythic quality, allowing us to almost put whatever we wish into the environment or context.

It speaks of how one could say they have 'the heavens' embroidered cloths' - great riches - but often in reality, or simply conceptually, have 'only my dreams' - our hopes, joys, ideals, visions for the future - and so we 'spread my dreams under your feet' - we offer our dreams to others, to individuals and to our world - and ask that they 'tread softly because you tread on my dreams'.

Its imagery and rhythm brings together the cosmic - 'heavens... golden and silver light... night' - and the personal - 'clothes... feet... tread softly' - forming an atmosphere so elemental that one feels we can almost touch it, smell it or breath it.

As I said, it clarifies, cuts through and captures and a certain mythic, transcendent quality. It speaks of the human condition, it speaks of dreams and of intimacy, and trust toward others on the soul-ful level, it speaks of how life can tread hard but how we must keep our hearts soft.

Yeats, I imagine, meant more than I have incised. There will be other interpretations, this is mine. I like Treading Softly, it draws something deep out and places something deep in.

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