Textuality » 3A Interacting
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.
This poem is part of a collection of poems written by Yeats in 1899. The title, "Cloths of Heaven" doesn't give any specific ideas about the content of the poem. It is a hint to something else which will be described in the text.
The poem is made of eight lines, which are not arranged into stanzas.
In the first five lines the poet makes a whish: he would like to have the Heaven's cloths, in order to spread them under his lover's feet. From line one to line four he describes the cloths, how and what they are made of and whose they are. In the following lines he specifies he does not have them, he is poor and has got only his dreams. But they are very important and precious too, so his lover has to pay attention and treat them softly.
The text is made of an alternate rhyme in which there is the repetition of the whole words and not only of the final letters. Each line starts with a capital letter, even if there are not points and, furthermore, between line three and four there is a run-on-lines. The language used is simple and clear. In the whole text there is the repetition of few words, even in the middle of the lines, (cloths...cloths, light...light, spread...spread, tread...tread). By these structures the reading of the poem is musical and slow, charged with deep meaning.
In this poem the poet tells he would give to his lover the best things in the world, the most beautiful and precious. But does not have them but he has his dreams, the most important things he has, and he loves her so much that he presents them to her. For this reason, even if they are only dreams, she must not underestimate them.
"Offerings" by Hilary Tham
I came to you at sunrise,
with silvery dew on sleeping lotus
sparkling in my gay hands;
you put my flowers in the sun.
I danced to you at midday,
with bright raintree blooms
flaming in my ardent arms;
you dropped my blossoms in the pond.
I crept to you at sunset,
with pale lilac orchids
trembling on my uncertain lips;
you shredded my petals in the sand.
I strode to you at midnight,
with gravel hard and cold
clenched in my bitter fists;
you offered me your hybrid orchids,
and crushed them in despair.
This poem was written by Hilary Tham in the end of 1900 century. By the title, "Offerings", I expect to find a description of some offerings that the protagonist gives to another person.
The poem is made of seventeen lines, arranged into four stanzas. Each stanza has got four lines, except for the last one which is made of five lines.
The poem deal with the offerings given by the speaking voice (the poet) to her lover. From the first stanza to the last one the strength of the feelings increases, from the happiness of the first one to the despair of the last one.
In the first stanza the action takes place in the morning, at sunrise. The protagonist goes to her lover, gives him her offering and he accepts it. In this part you feel all the joy and trepidation given by love. But in the second stanza something happens and the lover drops the flowers in a pond. So the atmosphere changes, now it is sunset and the protagonist is bewildered and fearful and gets another refusal. In the last stanza she is more determined even if upset: her offering is some gravel clenched into fists. The lover gives her some orchids but she shreds them in the despair.
In this poem the stanzas are not tidied up by rhymes or by other figures of speech but in each stanza the same structure occurs again: first line begins with the subject "I" and describes how the protagonist reaches her lover; second line starts with the preposition "with" and describes what the offering is, third line begins with an adjective which comes from a verb and describes what are the feelings felt; the last line starts with the pronoun "you" and is given over the description of the lover's reactions.
This poem tells feelings felt by a person who gets a refusal from his lover. At the beginning she is happy and anxious, then, after she has got the deny, she becomes fearful and nearly she submits to him, she creeps to him, not to lose his love. After that, resignation becomes anger and sadness, so the person refuses his lover and leaves him.