Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with gold and silver 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.
That poem,which so touchingly captures the vulnerability of love, is by William Butler Yeats – a true wordsmith.
It’s quoted often when folks list some of their favorite lines from literature, either because of their grammatical elegance or the wisdom they impart.
So what’s the point? An impending holiday encourages us to celebrate “the weavers of words:” It’s “National Wordsmith Day,” happening May 3.
On that date we’re encouraged to revisit the works of those who have forged beauty or insight from our mother tongue, whether their tools have been the pen, the typewriter, or the keyboard.
One website touting the “holiday” describes it as a recognition of “the profound impact that writers can have on our thoughts and feelings through their careful choice of words and their ability to craft compelling narratives.”
Some memorable lines are stunning in their simplicity.In Anne of Green Gables, L. M. Montgomery wrote, “Tomorrow is always fresh, with no mistakes in it yet.”
As for other wordsmiths, it’s hard to minimize the originality of Toni Morrison when, in her slavery-oriented novel Beloved, a character says, “She is a friend of my mind… The pieces I am, she gather them and give them back to me in all the right order.”
And who cannot be moved by what Anne Frank wrote in her diary before the Nazis captured her in Amsterdam and sent her to death at Bergen-Belsen: “In spite of everything, I still believe people are really good at heart.”
Many of us may recognize a truth in Kate Chopin’s 1899 novel The Awakening: “She was becoming herself and daily casting aside that fictitious self which we assume like a garment with which to appear before the world.”
John Steinbeck touched on a similar theme when a character in Of Mice and Men speculates, “Maybe ever’body in the whole damn world is scared of each other.”
As for how we may disguise ourselves before others, poet Walt Whitman would have none of it: “I celebrate myself, and sing myself…clear and sweet is my soul…”
And how gossamer the words of novelist Alexander Solzhenitsyn: “In our village, folks say God crumbles up the old moon into stars.”
Speaking of wordsmiths, one of course must conjure Shakespeare. The Bard, like Yeats, had his own famous take on affection: “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breath and height my soul can reach.”
Also etched in world memory is his, “To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.”
As for National Wordsmith Day, that’s as good a time as any to get reacquainted with some of your own literary favorites.
They’re not that far away, according to Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist and short story author Jhumpa Lahiri, who spent many years as a resident of South Kingstown.
That’s the thing about books,“ she once wrote. “They let you travel without moving your feet.”
As for the writing of them, novelist Ernest Hemingway said there’s nothing to it: “All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”
Aptly named poet William Wordsworth offered advice that’s less injurious, but charts an equally personal pathway for budding wordsmiths: “Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.”
Gerry Goldstein (gerryg76@verizon.net), a frequent contributor, is a retired Providence Journal editor and columnist.
