Summary

The speaker looks towards the sky and wishes he could give it to his love. The sky looks like a bolt of cloth embroidered with the gold and silver light of the sun, moon and stars. If he could reach it, he would take the sky and spread it at the feet of his love. However, all he has are his dreams. He cautions his love to treat them gently.

Analysis

“Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven”, later retitled “He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven”, is a short, compact poem of only eight lines. Within the body of the poem, the speaker is left nameless; he’s merely a dreamy, romantic poet deeply in love (or deeply infatuated) with a likewise unnamed person. Neither character is gendered, although the poem’s original title and its biographical context suggests a man speaking to...