222. Tread softly because you tread on my dreams
“Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven” is a poem by William Butler Yeats.
84 Charing Cross Road, the 1987 drama film directed by David Jones, has used lines from the poem.
Starring Anne Bancroft, Anthony Hopkins, and Judi Dench, the screenplay by Hugh Whitemore is adapted from a play by James Roose-Evans. This play itself is based on Helene Hanff's 1970 epistolary memoir, which comprises letters exchanged between Hanff and Frank Doel from 1949 to 1968.
This film features a writer/reader (Anne Bancroft) and a bookstore manager (Anthony Hopkins) who become trans-Atlantic pen pals over many years.
Anthony Hopkins' character reads this poem, symbolizing his deep, unspoken affection for Helen. These nostalgic lines are just one of the many delightful literary moments in 84 Charing Cross Road.
Read here the full poem -
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.