“Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven” by 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.

William Butler Yeats
1899

Commentary: Two days ago, I was watching the film, “Equilibrium,” when I heard one of the characters say the last three lines from this poem by Yeats. The film itself is a science fiction commentary on our culture. It imagines a post-World War III, post-nuclear society intent upon eradicating all human emotion that might lead to violence, so everyone takes a daily dose of “prozium,” which essentially neutralizes the emotions. A police force is responsible for destroying all cultural artifacts of the prewar era that might provoke emotion: works of art, literature, even colorful home furnishings. At the beginning of the film, it is one of the strangest things to watch this force set the Mona Lisa on fire.

Of course, the film isn’t about endorsing censorship or violence against art. It’s about a character who discovers how important his emotions are. He begins to grieve the death of his wife, to regret the work he has done as a grammaton cleric on the police force to destroy old world art and literature, to pity and fear his son who is walking in his footsteps, to see the need to rescue a puppy dog, to appreciate all of the senses and to use them … to smell perfume, to touch a hand railing, to look at a red ribbon, to listen to a Beethoven symphony …

At one point, this man has a conversation with a woman who has been arrested for “sense offense,” that is, for failing to take her daily dose of prozium and for creating a room of old world treasures clearly meant to engage all of her senses. This woman, Mary O’Brian, asks him why he exists, and he answers that he exists to perpetuate and protect their society. He asks her why she exists, and she says, “to feel.”

It seems to me that an existence primarily about feelings is incomplete. But in a world where emotions are denied and repressed, I can see how it could become one woman’s mission to feel intensely, deeply, and meaningfully all that there might be in her heart to feel. The gift of empathy is not only powerful in science fiction but necessary in real life.

But more than that, a life without feelings is incomplete. It is impossible, as the main character of this film finds out. When attempted, it is likely to destroy the wholeness that God intends for our souls.

What must Yeats have felt to write about wishing to give the sky to the one he addresses in his poem? What must he have felt admitting to his own poverty? Why did he lay his dreams at another’s feet knowing those feet would walk on his dreams?

Only if our hearts are open can we guess.

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