Blind / Harry Kemp

Blind

Cumberland Market, London

The Spring blew trumpets of color;
Her Green sang in my brain —
I heard a blind man groping
"Tap — tap" with his cane;

I pitied him in his blindness;
But can I boast, "I see"?
Perhaps there walks a spirit
Close by, who pities me, —

A spirit who hears me tapping
The five-sensed cane of mind
Amid such unguessed glories —
That I am worse than blind.

~~
Harry Kemp (1883-1960)
From Chanteys and Ballads, 1920

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada and the United States]

Harry Kemp biography