<![CDATA[Dead Poets Daily]]>https://www.deadpoetsdaily.comhttps://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!z_4A!,w_256,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F7b481a67-8597-49b1-b0c2-45ed5f95a735_1024x1024.pngDead Poets Dailyhttps://www.deadpoetsdaily.comSubstackMon, 27 Apr 2026 18:27:38 GMT<![CDATA[Oh, Gray and Tender Is the Rain]]>https://www.deadpoetsdaily.com/p/lizette-woodworth-reese-poem-oh-gray-and-tender-is-the-rainhttps://www.deadpoetsdaily.com/p/lizette-woodworth-reese-poem-oh-gray-and-tender-is-the-rainMon, 27 Apr 2026 08:59:49 GMTOh, gray and tender is the rain,
That drips, drips on the pane!
A hundred things come in the door,
The scent of herbs, the thought of yore.

I see the pool out in the grass,
A bit of broken glass;
The red flags running wet and straight,
Down to the little flapping gate.

Lombardy poplars tall and three,
Across the road I see;
There is no loveliness so plain
As a tall poplar in the rain.

But oh, the hundred things and more,
That come in at the door! —
The smack of mint, old joy, old pain,
Caught in the gray and tender rain.

]]><![CDATA[On the World]]>https://www.deadpoetsdaily.com/p/francis-quarles-poem-on-the-worldhttps://www.deadpoetsdaily.com/p/francis-quarles-poem-on-the-worldFri, 24 Apr 2026 08:59:51 GMTThe world’s an inn; and I her guest.
I eat; I drink; I take my rest.
My hostess, nature, does deny me
Nothing, wherewith she can supply me;
Where, having stayed a while, I pay
Her lavish bills, and go my way.

]]><![CDATA[Paradox]]>https://www.deadpoetsdaily.com/p/berenice-van-slyke-poem-paradoxhttps://www.deadpoetsdaily.com/p/berenice-van-slyke-poem-paradoxThu, 23 Apr 2026 08:59:47 GMTDeath like a shadow fastens on my feet,
Moving in rhythm with me down the street.
Dawn to high noon and twilight find him still
Rooted in me as granite in a hill.
Even at midnight, when the sky is black,
His undefeated step takes up my track
He makes no sound, and sometimes I forget,
Laughing with life, that I am so beset.
With the last fusion of my blood and bones
Our double shade will fret no more the stones;
But to that change I happily submit—
For life is flesh, but death the soul of it.

]]><![CDATA[Choice]]>https://www.deadpoetsdaily.com/p/charles-henri-ford-poem-choicehttps://www.deadpoetsdaily.com/p/charles-henri-ford-poem-choiceWed, 22 Apr 2026 08:59:44 GMTI have endured the sword-edge of your glance,
and when the shell around my brain was nicked
no flinching was (but once, and once
again I’ve felt my heart contract).

This is the anguish that can have
but one conclusion (I’ll lie hot, then frozen).
Let others seek an end more bright or brave.
This is the death I have chosen.

]]><![CDATA[Let No Wind Come]]>https://www.deadpoetsdaily.com/p/mary-sarton-poem-let-no-wind-comehttps://www.deadpoetsdaily.com/p/mary-sarton-poem-let-no-wind-comeTue, 21 Apr 2026 08:59:40 GMTYou had found words for this and called it love:
But when your cheek lay against mine like one
Leaf on another leaf, it was not love;
And when I bent to you, it was not done
For love. From deeper in the rooted mind
There came as softly as a flowering tree
A light as petals falling on the blind—
I saw life grow and fold itself in me.
And now I have a body who had none,
And now I have a heart who had before
Only a moth’s wing lying at the bone,
Only a moth’s heart beating at the core.
It is not less than love that at your kiss
I saw a flower unfold—it is not less.

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]]><![CDATA[Meteor]]>https://www.deadpoetsdaily.com/p/benjamin-albert-botkin-poem-meteorhttps://www.deadpoetsdaily.com/p/benjamin-albert-botkin-poem-meteorMon, 20 Apr 2026 09:00:22 GMTMore beautiful than ships or planes
Are lightning-flash and thunderbolt
Of runaway night-frightened trains.

Swift, brutal in a wild assault
Of frantic wings and flying heels,
They leap from out the catapult

Of distance, thunder in their wheels
And lightning in their Cyclops’ eye
And serpent tail, with warning squeals

As if the shaken stars and sky
Were falling through the holes they rip
In night and silence. Demon cry

And dragon flight, receding, slip
Into the reticence of space—
More terrible than plane or ship
In fiery speed and iron grace.

]]><![CDATA[The North Star Whispers to the Blacksmith’s Son]]>https://www.deadpoetsdaily.com/p/vachel-lindsay-poem-the-north-star-whispers-to-the-blacksmiths-sonhttps://www.deadpoetsdaily.com/p/vachel-lindsay-poem-the-north-star-whispers-to-the-blacksmiths-sonFri, 17 Apr 2026 08:59:35 GMTThe North Star whispers: “You are one
Of those whose course no chance can change.
You blunder, but are not undone,
Your spirit-task is fixed and strange.

“When here you walk, a bloodless shade,
A singer all men else forget.
Your chants of hammer, forge and spade
Will move the prarie-village yet.

“That young, stiff-necked, reviling town
Beholds your fancies on her walls,
And paints them out or tears them down,
Or bars them from her feasting halls.

“Yet shall the fragments still remain;
Yet shall remain some watch-tower strong
That ivy-vines will not disdain,
Haunted and trembling with your song.

“Your flambeau in the dusk shall burn,
Flame high in storms, flame white and clear;
Your ghost in gleaming robes return
And burn a deathless incense here.”

]]><![CDATA[A Word That Makes Us Linger]]>https://www.deadpoetsdaily.com/p/frederick-locker-lampson-poem-a-word-that-makes-us-lingerhttps://www.deadpoetsdaily.com/p/frederick-locker-lampson-poem-a-word-that-makes-us-lingerThu, 16 Apr 2026 08:59:32 GMTKind hostess mine, who raised the latch
And welcomed me beneath your thatch,
Who makes me here forget the pain,
And all the pleasures of Cockaigne,
Now, pen in hand, and pierced with woe,
I write one word before I go—
A word that dies upon my lips
While thus you kiss your finger-tips.

When Black-Eyed Sue was rowed to land
That word she cried, and waved her hand—
Her lily hand!
It seems absurd,
But I can’t write that dreadful word.

]]><![CDATA[Revolt]]>https://www.deadpoetsdaily.com/p/eunice-tietjens-poem-revolthttps://www.deadpoetsdaily.com/p/eunice-tietjens-poem-revoltWed, 15 Apr 2026 08:59:26 GMTI will cry out against the intellect,
The balanced thought, the judgment, the cool wind
That blows across thin reaches of the mind.
Grant it a sterile beauty! I respect
These crystal mathematics which direct
Our new material progress, and I find
Polarity of light holds a new kind
Of interest for one who can reflect.

Yet mind can kill the soul that houses it,
Slow as a glacier kills; for mind forgets
It is the handmaid only. Life upsets
Mind when it pleases—scraps it as unfit.
Let me decry cool mind, and sing the flash,
The glowing core, that burns it to an ash.

]]><![CDATA[Even in the Moment of Our Earliest Kiss]]>https://www.deadpoetsdaily.com/p/edna-st-vincent-millay-poem-even-in-the-moment-of-our-earliest-kisshttps://www.deadpoetsdaily.com/p/edna-st-vincent-millay-poem-even-in-the-moment-of-our-earliest-kissTue, 14 Apr 2026 08:59:37 GMTEven in the moment of our earliest kiss,
When sighed the straitened bud into the flower,
Sat the dry seed of most unwelcome this;
And that I knew, though not the day and hour.
Too season-wise am I, being country-bred,
To tilt at autumn or defy the frost:
Snuffing the chill even as my fathers did,
I say with them, “What’s out tonight is lost.”
I only hoped, with the mild hope of all
Who watch the leaf take shape upon the tree,
A fairer summer and a later fall
Than in these parts a man is apt to see,
And sunny clusters ripened for the wine:
I tell you this across the blackened vine.

]]><![CDATA[Life]]>https://www.deadpoetsdaily.com/p/henry-van-dyke-poem-lifehttps://www.deadpoetsdaily.com/p/henry-van-dyke-poem-lifeMon, 13 Apr 2026 08:59:59 GMTLet me but live my life from year to year,
With forward face and unreluctant soul;
Not hurrying to, nor turning from the goal;
Not mourning for the things that disappear
In the dim past, nor holding back in fear
From what the future veils; but with a whole
And happy heart, that pays its toll
To Youth and Age, and travels on with cheer.

So let the way wind up the hill or down,
Over rough or smooth, the journey will be joy:
Still seeking what I sought when but a boy,
New friendship, high adventure, and a crown,
My heart will keep the courage of the quest,
And hope the road’s last turn will be the best.

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]]><![CDATA[Moonlight]]>https://www.deadpoetsdaily.com/p/victoria-sackville-west-moonlighthttps://www.deadpoetsdaily.com/p/victoria-sackville-west-moonlightFri, 10 Apr 2026 08:59:39 GMTWhat time the meanest brick and stone
Take on a beauty not their own,
And past the flaw of builded wood
Shines the intention whole and good,
And all the little homes of man
Rise to a dimmer, nobler span;
When colour’s absence gives escape
To the deeper spirit of the shape,

—Then earth’s great architecture swells
Among her mountains and her fells
Under the moon to amplitude
Massive and primitive and rude:

—Then do the clouds like silver flags
Stream out above the tattered crags,
And black and silver all the coast
Marshalls its hunched and rocky host,
And headlands striding sombrely
Buttress the land against the sea,
—The darkened land, the brightening wave—
And moonlight slants through Merlin’s cave.

]]><![CDATA[The Traveller’s Rest]]>https://www.deadpoetsdaily.com/p/basho-haiku-the-travellers-resthttps://www.deadpoetsdaily.com/p/basho-haiku-the-travellers-restThu, 09 Apr 2026 08:59:15 GMTA wayside cherry-tree
Is to a weary pilgrim like
A restful lullaby.

]]><![CDATA[Straw in the Street]]>https://www.deadpoetsdaily.com/p/amy-levy-poem-straw-in-the-streethttps://www.deadpoetsdaily.com/p/amy-levy-poem-straw-in-the-streetWed, 08 Apr 2026 08:59:39 GMTStraw in the street where I pass today
Dulls the sound of the wheels and feet.
’Tis for a failing life, they lay
Straw in the street.

Here, where the pulses of London beat,
Someone strives with the presence, grey;
Ah, is it victory or defeat?

The hurrying people go their way,
Pause and jostle and pass and greet;
For life, for death, are they treading, say,
Straw in the street?

]]><![CDATA[Bells of Gray Crystal]]>https://www.deadpoetsdaily.com/p/edith-sitwell-poem-bells-of-gray-crystalhttps://www.deadpoetsdaily.com/p/edith-sitwell-poem-bells-of-gray-crystalTue, 07 Apr 2026 08:59:41 GMTBells of gray crystal
Break on each bough—
The swans’ breath will mist all
The cold airs now.
Like tall pagodas
Two people go,
Trail their long codas
Of talk through the snow.
Lonely are these
And lonely and I…
The clouds, gray Chinese geese
Sleek through the sky.

]]><![CDATA[Alibi]]>https://www.deadpoetsdaily.com/p/john-belknap-poem-alibihttps://www.deadpoetsdaily.com/p/john-belknap-poem-alibiMon, 06 Apr 2026 08:59:39 GMTDo not be angry if I merely
Shrug in reply to some bright pleasance.
Do not be scared if I talk queerly—
I am not wholly in your presence.

I am remembering, bone and marrow,
Small wooden things I used to whittle—
A painted bow and a flint arrow
I loved and lost when I was little.

]]><![CDATA[To a Thinker]]>https://www.deadpoetsdaily.com/p/nadejda-de-braganca-poem-to-a-thinkerhttps://www.deadpoetsdaily.com/p/nadejda-de-braganca-poem-to-a-thinkerFri, 03 Apr 2026 08:59:37 GMTYou would tie philosophy
To a comet’s tail;
You would analyze the bat
And the nightingale.
Leave your logic for awhile
When the stars begin;
Let the dusk winds play your soul
As a violin.

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]]><![CDATA[The Lake Isle of Innisfree]]>https://www.deadpoetsdaily.com/p/william-butler-yeats-poem-the-lake-isle-of-innisfreehttps://www.deadpoetsdaily.com/p/william-butler-yeats-poem-the-lake-isle-of-innisfreeThu, 02 Apr 2026 08:59:40 GMTI will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet’s wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart’s core.

]]><![CDATA[Fog]]>https://www.deadpoetsdaily.com/p/carl-sandburg-poem-foghttps://www.deadpoetsdaily.com/p/carl-sandburg-poem-fogWed, 01 Apr 2026 08:59:41 GMTThe fog comes
on little cat feet.

It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.

]]><![CDATA[The Magic Sieve]]>https://www.deadpoetsdaily.com/p/florence-s-small-poem-the-magic-sievehttps://www.deadpoetsdaily.com/p/florence-s-small-poem-the-magic-sieveTue, 31 Mar 2026 08:59:36 GMTThis screen door is a sieve,
Through it the day is drifting—
The smell of the sea and the sun,
And the shadows shifting
From tendrils of tossing vines,
The sweet frail spice
From a wild-rose bush
And the song of a thrush.

The sunset colors soon,
And then the light of the moon
Will sift through the old screen door
On to my kitchen floor.

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