Happy poems
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The Princess: Tears, Idle Tears
© Alfred Tennyson
Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean,
Tears from the depth of some divine despair
Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,
In looking on the happy Autumn-fields,
And thinking of the days that are no more.
Playthings
© Anselm Hollo
Child, how happy you are sitting in the dust, playing with a broken twig all the morning.
I smile at your play with that little bit of a broken twig.
A Prayer for My Daughter
© William Butler Yeats
Once more the storm is howling, and half hid
Under this cradle-hood and coverlid
Sad Wine (I)
© Cesare Pavese
It was beautiful how he cried as he told it,
the way a drunk cries, his whole body to it,
and he hung on my shoulder saying, Between us,
always respect, and there I was, shaking with cold,
wanting to leave, and helping him walk.
Love's Alchemy
© John Donne
Some that have deeper digg'd love's mine than I,
Say, where his centric happiness doth lie;
Swordfish
© Andrew Hudgins
My fingertips marveled at the silvery shimmer,
already less silver, less shimmery than when it lived.
The Cab Driver Who Ripped Me Off
© Cornelius Eady
That’s right, said the cab driver,
Turning the corner to the
Amoretti I: Happy ye leaves when as those lilly hands
© Edmund Spenser
Happy ye leaves when as those lilly hands,
Which hold my life in their dead doing might
Nuns Fret Not at Their Convent’s Narrow Room
© André Breton
Nuns fret not at their convent’s narrow room;
And hermits are contented with their cells;
To His Mistress Going to Bed
© John Donne
Come, Madam, come, all rest my powers defy,
Until I labour, I in labour lie.
The Skylark
© John Clare
The rolls and harrows lie at rest beside
The battered road; and spreading far and wide
The Herdsman
© Fernando António Nogueira Pessoa
I'm herdsman of a flock.
The sheep are my thoughts
And my thoughts are all sensations.
I think with my eyes and my ears
And my hands and feet
And nostrils and mouth.
A Visit from St. Nicholas
© Clement Clarke Moore
'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;
Soonest Mended
© John Ashbery
Barely tolerated, living on the margin
In our technological society, we were always having to be rescued
Eclogue the Second: HASSAN; or, the Camel-driver.
© William Taylor Collins
Ah! little thought I of the blasting wind,
The thirst or pinching hunger that I find!
Bethink thee, Hassan, where shall thirst assuage,
When fails this cruise, his unrelenting rage?
Soon shall this scrip its precious load resign;
Then what but tears and hunger shall be thine?
The Stream's Secret
© Dante Gabriel Rossetti
What thing unto mine ear
Wouldst thou convey,what secret thing,
O wandering water ever whispering?
Surely thy speech shall be of her.
Thou water, O thou whispering wanderer,
What message dost thou bring?
Paradise Lost: Book X
© Patrick Kavanagh
So having said, he thus to Eve in few:
"Say, Woman, what is this which thou hast done?"
To whom sad Eve, with shame nigh overwhelm'd,
Confessing soon, yet not before her Judge
Bold or loquacious, thus abash'd replied,
"The Serpent me beguil'd, and I did eat."
