Little wounded feet,
bruised by every stone,
outraged by the snow
and the mud!

Blind humanity does not know
that wherever you pass,
you leave behind
a living flower of light;

that wherever you set
your bleeding little sole,
the tuberose blooms
with sweeter fragrance.

Go on, since you travel
the straight and narrow roads,
heroic as you are,
and perfect.

Little children’s feet,
two suffering jewels—
how do people pass by
without seeing you?

no flower ever opened
so staunch a white leaf,
no flower ever parted silver
from such rare silver;

O white pear,
your flower-tufts,
thick on the branch,
bring summer and ripe fruits
in their purple hearts.

A note to readers on our 1,000th poem

This is the 1,000th poem published on Dead Poets Daily. To my 90,000 subscribers, thank you for your ongoing interest and support. I couldn’t have imagined this number of subscribers when I started, nor after the first year when there were just 300 of us.

I spend a few hours a week sourcing these poems. The income from paid subscribers now covers my (very low) running costs, but does not cover my time. So your enthusiasm is what motivates me to continue.

Amongst other types of poetry, this year I’ve aimed to publish one haiku each month. Many of these came from William Porter’s 1911 book A Year of Japanese Epigrams. I recently edited and arranged a new digital edition of this anthology, which is now available from Apple Books and Flickerwell Classics.

Today I’m gifting this ebook to current and former paid subscribers, in deep appreciation of your support.

All future paid subscribers will also receive a copy, which retails for US$19.99.

For all other subscribers, Dead Poets Daily will remain free (and ad-free).

Thank you again, and kind regards,
Ario Smith
Editor, Dead Poets Daily

Subscribe now

I exult alone in one wild hour—
That hour in which the red cup drowns
The memories it anon renews
In ghastlier guise, in fiercer power—
Then Fancy brings me golden crowns,
And visions of all brilliant hues
Lap my lost soul in gladness,
Until I awake again,
And the dark lava-fires of madness
Once more sweep through my brain.

With emerald streak and silver blotch
The white wind paints the purple sea.
Warm in our hollow dune we watch
The honey-orchis nurse the bee.

Gold to the keel the startled boats
Beat in on palpitating sail,
While overhead with many throats
The choral forest hymns the gale.

’Neath forest-boughs the templed air
Hangs hushed as when the Host is lifted,
While, flanks astrain and rigging bare,
The last boat to the port has drifted…

Nought left but the lost wind that grieves
On darkening seas and furling sails,
And the long light that Beauty leaves
Upon her fallen veils…

Days I remember of
Now in my heart, are now;
Days that I dream will bloom
White the peach bough.

Dying shall never be
Now in the windy grass;
Now under shooken leaves
Death never was.

A note to readers: Dead Poets Daily will always be ad-free. If you’re able to support this work, please consider a paid subscription:

Subscribe now

And I who watch and listen, lie in wait,
Seeing the cloudy cavalcades blow past,
Happy if some bright vagrant, soon or late,
May venture near the snares of sound, at last—
Most fortunate captor if, from time to time,
One may be taken, trembling, in a rhyme.

And yet it falls short, I’m afraid,
Of giving satisfaction,
This making literature by aid
Of scientific traction;
For often, I can’t fail to see,
The dashed thing runs away with me.
It bolts, and do whatever I may
I cannot hold the runaway.

It is not fitted with a brake,
And endless are my verses,
Nor any yarn I start to make
Appropriately terse is.
’Tis plain that this machine-made screed
Is fit but for machines to read;
So “Wanted” (as an iron censor)
“A good, sound, secondhand condenser!”

Then, when night grew more stilly palpitate
Listening for the faint birth-cry of morn,
And the cock crew, I, at the very gate,
Fell into cloddish slumber, all out-worn.
Even as I slept, soft as a look or sigh,
The Dawn with Love beside her passed me by.

Wind and sea never still—
Wind that beats on empty hill,
Beats upon old tumbled rocks;
Sea on empty shore that knocks,
Knocks, knocks, never still—
Wind and sea never still.

Two by two and one alone—
Five small houses built of stone.

Lingering in this curious land,
Here the bodies of men can find
Shelter from the sea and wind—
Hidden in a pit of sand,
Shelter bodies of men can find;
And for souls a flower or two—
For the souls that linger here
Lest they die of stony fear,
For their souls a flower or two
Growing in the sand.

A note to readers: Dead Poets Daily will remain ad-free for everyone. If you’re able to support this work, please consider a paid subscription:

Subscribe now

Where all the fevered rush,
Of every thirsty way
Is lost in liquid hush
At the close of day.

Fine-carved, unchanging, exquisite forever,
It is for praise, for gazing; to be worn
Proudly, and shown
Where other still and cold things shine by night.
It shall have eyes to marvel at it, words… but never
Honey or love or flight.

This is a green jade butterfly
With wings of lace and stone;
Never alive,
Never windblown.

I may not enter the garden,
Though I know the road thereto;
And morn by morn to the gateway
I see the children go.

They bring back light on their faces;
But they cannot bring back to me
What the lilies say to the roses,
Or the songs of the butterflies be.