Tweetspeak Poetry

  • Home
  • FREE prompts
  • Earth Song
  • Every Day Poems—Subscribe! ✨
  • Teaching Tools
  • Books, Etc.
  • Patron Love

By Heart: ‘I Have Wrapped My Dreams in a Silken Cloth’ + New Vachel Lindsay Challenge

By Megan Willome 4 Comments

Poet to Work
I first encountered Countee Cullen, one of the newest additions to Take Your Poet to Work Day, when I was gifted a poetry collection during an interview for The Joy of Poetry. Author Elizabeth Crook said All the Silver Pennies is her go-to baby gift, and in it I found two poems by Cullen. Countee Cullen Take Your Poet to Work DayThe first is “Incident,” a sobering story of time when Cullen was 8 and a boy called him the n-word. I chose the other poem, “I Have Wrapped My Dreams in a Silken Cloth,” to learn by heart.

I Have Wrapped My Dreams in a Silken Cloth

I have wrapped my dreams in a silken cloth
And laid them away in a box of gold,
Where long may cling the lips of the moth;
I have wrapped my dreams in a silken cloth.
I hide no hate; I am not even wroth
Who found life’s breath so keen and cold.
I have wrapped my dreams in a silken cloth
And laid them away in a box of gold.

— Countee Cullen

Every poem in this collection comes with a short introduction by the editor, Blanche Jennings Thompson. Because this is a book for children, the introduction is not intended to analyze or instruct — it’s an invitation. Here is how she introduces this poem:

Most human beings start out in life with dreams of success and happiness. Some achieve all their goals apparently almost without trying. Others, because of barriers of race, creed, color or physical condition are obliged to lay their dreams away and face an uncertain future. Have the successful of this world any obligation to help their less fortunate brothers? What are some of the best ways to help?”

Still good questions, fifty-three years after Thompson wrote those words.

The pen and ink drawing accompanying Cullen’s poem is of the “box of gold” and includes a padlock. Sometimes dreams need to be wrapped safe, locked tight.

Countee Cullen was a member of the Harlem Renaissance. In the introduction to Cullen’s collected poems, poet Major Jackson says although Cullen was one of the first poets published from that period — one marked by experimentation — his poetry harkened back to an older (read: Whiter) poetic style, featuring formal language that “seemed sponsored in sound and sense by a bygone era.”

But that doesn’t mean Cullen was stodgy. He had style and flair. He loved the poetry of John Keats and was known as the “Black Keats.” He found form poetry a freeing place to play.

“I Have Wrapped My Dreams in a Silken Cloth” only has eight lines, and five of them repeat. “Cloth” rhymes with “moth” and also with a word that definitely sounds of a bygone era: “wroth.” The poem is simple, yet elegant.

While I was memorizing I was also reading Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which is more of a page-turner than I expected. As I got to know Tom, George, Eliza, Cassy, and other characters who were enslaved, I began to imagine each of them wrapping their dreams in a silken cloth and laying them away in a box of gold. I suspect not all of Countee Cullen’s dreams came true. If we want a glimpse at what he laid away, all we need to do is read his poems.

That padlock is open.

Your Turn

Did you memorize “I Have Wrapped My Dreams in a Silken Cloth” this month? It won’t take long. Join our By Heart community and share your audio or video using the hashtags #ByHeart and #MemoriesWithFriends and tagging us @tspoetry. We also welcome photos of your handwritten copy of the poem.

By Heart for August

For the next By Heart gathering, August 28, we’ll learn “The Dandelion” by Vachel Lindsay. Time to reuse those colors you dug out for Take Your Poet to Work Day, because this one has its own coloring page!
The Dandelion by Vachel Lindsay Coloring Page Poem

Photo by John Lustig, Creative Commons, via Flickr. Post by Megan Willome.

Browse more By Heart

MW-Joy of Poetry Front cover 367 x 265

“Megan Willome’s The Joy of Poetry is not a long book, but it took me longer to read than I expected, because I kept stopping to savor poems and passages, to make note of books mentioned, and to compare Willome’s journey into poetry to my own. The book is many things. An unpretentious, funny, and poignant memoir. A defense of poetry, a response to literature that has touched her life, and a manual on how to write poetry. It’s also the story of a daughter who loses her mother to cancer. The author links these things into a narrative much like that of a novel. I loved this book. As soon as I finished, I began reading it again.”

—David Lee Garrison, author of Playing Bach in the D. C. Metro

Buy The Joy of Poetry Now

  • Author
  • Recent Posts
Megan Willome
Megan Willome
Megan Willome is a writer, editor, and author of The Joy of Poetry: How to Keep, Save & Make Your Life With Poems and Rainbow Crow: poems in and out of form. Her day is incomplete without poetry, tea, and a walk in the dark.
Megan Willome
Latest posts by Megan Willome (see all)
  • Perspective: The Two, The Only: Calvin and Hobbes - December 16, 2022
  • Children’s Book Club: A Very Haunted Christmas - December 9, 2022
  • By Heart: ‘The night is darkening round me’ by Emily Brontë - December 2, 2022

Filed Under: A Poem in Every Heart, By Heart, Take Your Poet to Work Day

Try Every Day Poems...

About Megan Willome

Megan Willome is a writer, editor, and author of The Joy of Poetry: How to Keep, Save & Make Your Life With Poems and Rainbow Crow: poems in and out of form. Her day is incomplete without poetry, tea, and a walk in the dark.

Comments

  1. L.L. Barkat says

    July 24, 2020 at 1:38 pm

    I like the way the dream is still treated as precious, though locked away. Treated tenderly, too. I wonder what a dream like that does over time, even if tucked into secrecy.

    (For some reason the audio is silent. Not sure what that’s about. 🙂

    Reply
    • Megan Willome says

      July 24, 2020 at 1:58 pm

      Hm, I uploaded it again. It works on my phone, where it was recorded. Hope that helps.

      I think the poem invites us to tuck away certain dreams.

      Reply
  2. Sandra Heska King says

    July 27, 2020 at 7:33 am

    So… I don’t remember ever reading Uncle Tom’s Cabin. I just downloaded it.

    I’ve thrown away some dreams because after time they didn’t seem as important. But I’ve tucked a couple of precious ones away in hopes that maybe one day they will come true. The dreams aren’t for me.

    This reminded me of MLK’s “I have a dream.”

    The audio works for me.

    Reply
    • Megan Willome says

      July 27, 2020 at 8:21 am

      Good to hear (on the audio).

      Yes, there are dreams to keep and dreams to let go. The ones I find hardest to release are those for others.

      The book is much more evangelical than I expected.

      Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Take How to Read a Poem

Get the Introduction, the Billy Collins poem, and Chapter 1

get the sample now

Welcome to Tweetspeak

New to Tweetspeak Poetry? Start here, in The Mischief Café. You're a regular? Check out our May Menu

Patron Love

❤️

Welcome a little patron love, when you help keep the world poetic.

The Graphic Novel

"Stunning, heartbreaking, and relevant illustrations"

Callie Feyen, teacher

read a summary of The Yellow Wallpaper

meet The Yellow Wallpaper characters

How to Write Poetry

Your Comments

  • Glynn on World War II Had Its Poets, Too
  • Sandra Fox Murphy on World War II Had Its Poets, Too
  • Glynn on Poets and Poems: Kelly Belmonte and “The Mother of All Words”
  • Bethany R. on Poets and Poems: Kelly Belmonte and “The Mother of All Words”

Featured In

We're happy to have been featured in...

The Huffington Post

The Paris Review

The New York Observer

Tumblr Book News

Stay in Touch With Us

Categories

Learn to Write Form Poems

How to Write an Acrostic

How to Write a Ballad

How to Write a Catalog Poem

How to Write a Ghazal

How to Write a Haiku

How to Write an Ode

How to Write a Pantoum

How to Write a Rondeau

How to Write a Sestina

How to Write a Sonnet

How to Write a Villanelle

5 FREE POETRY PROMPTS

Get 5 FREE inbox poetry prompts from the popular book How to Write a Poem

Shakespeare Resources

Poetry Classroom: Sonnet 18

Common Core Picture Poems: Sonnet 73

Sonnet 104 Annotated

Sonnet 116 Annotated

Character Analysis: Romeo and Juliet

Character Analysis: Was Hamlet Sane or Insane?

Why Does Hamlet Wait to Kill the King?

10 Fun Shakespeare Resources

About Shakespeare: Poet and Playwright

Top 10 Shakespeare Sonnets

See all 154 Shakespeare sonnets in our Shakespeare Library!

Explore Work From Black Poets

About Us

  • • A Blessing for Writers
  • • Our Story
  • • Meet Our Team
  • • Literary Citizenship
  • • Poet Laura
  • • Poetry for Life: The 5 Vital Approaches
  • • T. S. Poetry Press – All Books
  • • Contact Us

Write With Us

  • • 5 FREE Poetry Prompts-Inbox Delivery
  • • 30 Days to Richer Writing Workshop
  • • Poetry Prompts
  • • Submissions
  • • The Write to Poetry

Read With Us

  • • All Our Books
  • • Book Club
  • • Every Day Poems—Subscribe! ✨
  • • Literacy Extras
  • • Poems to Listen By: Audio Series
  • • Poet-a-Day
  • • Poets and Poems
  • • 50 States Projects
  • • Charlotte Perkins Gilman Poems Library
  • • Edgar Allan Poe Poems Arts & Experience Library
  • • William Blake Poems Arts & Experience Library
  • • William Shakespeare Sonnet Library

Celebrate With Us

  • • Poem on Your Pillow Day
  • • Poetic Earth Month
  • • Poet in a Cupcake Day
  • • Poetry at Work Day
  • • Random Acts of Poetry Day
  • • Take Your Poet to School Week
  • • Take Your Poet to Work Day

Gift Ideas

  • • Every Day Poems
  • • Our Shop
  • • Everybody Loves a Book!

Connect

  • • Donate
  • • Blog Buttons
  • • By Heart
  • • Shop for Tweetspeak Fun Stuff

Copyright © 2025 Tweetspeak Poetry · FAQ, Disclosure & Privacy Policy