Yeats speaks here not of grand gestures but of utter vulnerability—he's placed his most fragile creations directly in the path of another person's steps, where they might be crushed without notice. What makes this arresting is the reversal of power it suggests: by offering up his dreams as pavement, he's actually demanding something far harder than gratitude or admiration. He's asking for care, for a kind of attention that acknowledges the weight of what lies beneath. We see this dynamic whenever someone shows us their half-finished work, their private ambitions, or their honest fears—they're not seeking praise so much as asking us to step carefully, to recognize that the ground we walk on isn't solid stone but the dreams of people we know.