<P> "Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven" is a poem by William Butler Yeats . It was published in 1899 in his third volume of poetry, The Wind Among the Reeds . </P> <P> The speaker of the poem is the character Aedh, who appears in Yeats's work alongside two other archetypal characters of the poet's myth: Michael Robartes and Red Hanrahan . The three are collectively known as the principles of the mind . Whereas Robartes is intellectually powerful and Hanrahan represents Romantic primitivism, Aedh is pale, lovelorn, and in the thrall of La belle dame sans merci . (The character "Aedh" is replaced in volumes of Yeats's collected poetry by a more generic "he".) </P> <P> The poem was used in the films Equilibrium, 84 Charing Cross Road and the Korean film Dasepo Naughty Girls . The poem is recited by the character Brendan in the final episode of season 3 of the BBC series Ballykissangel . In Flagrante, a photographic book by Chris Killip, opens with the poem . John Irving uses the poem in the book A Widow for One Year . It is a recurrent metaphor in the relationship between a father and son in William Nicholson's novel The Secret Intensity of Everyday Life . </P> <P> 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 . </P>

He wishes for the cloths of heaven yeats