Poem of the week: He Wishes For The Cloths Of Heaven by William Butler Yeats

HAS a poem ever meant so much to you that you carried it around with you? Hundreds have – read their stories and the poems of their heart in the free book being distributed in Edinburgh by Unesco City of Literature and the Scottish Poetry Library all this month (or at www.carryapoem.com); there are also thousands of poem pocketcards to be had. Scots actor Alan Cumming chose Yeats's exquisite piece:

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.

You can pick up your free book and poem cards from the Scottish Poetry Library, at 5 Crichton's Close, Canongate, Edinburgh EH8 8DT (tel: [phone], e-mail [email protected]; www.spl.org.uk) or from public libraries. Or download it from www.carryapoem.com