Happy poems
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The Sea-Mew
© Dora Sigerson Shorter
I had loved the pretty birds that by my window sung
The gentle thrush that had his nest the perfumed pines among;
The chaffinch with his sudden note, his song so clear and bold;
The sad rhyme of the robin, too, that came when winds grew cold;
Summer Gone
© Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
SMALL wren, mute pecking at the last red plum
Or twittering idly at the yellowing boughs
Fruit-emptied, over thy forsaken house,--
Birdie, that seems to come
Telling, we too have spent our little store,
Our summer's o'er:
The Battle Autumn of 1862
© John Greenleaf Whittier
The flags of war like storm birds fly,
The charging trumpets blow;
Yet rolls no thunder in the sky,
No earthquake strives below.
To Joy
© Sara Teasdale
Lo, I am happy, for my eyes have seen
Joy glowing here before me, face to face;
His wings were arched above me for a space,
I kissed his lips, no bitter came between.
The Eye
© Allen Tate
I see the horses and the sad streets
Of my childhood in an agate eye
Roving, under the clean sheets,
Over a black hole in the sky.
Surprise Party
© Boris Vian
The turntable hacked up a melancholy blues
The air was heavy with dust and odors
Several zazous danced while holding to their hearts
Short girls with spasmodic behinds
To a Highland Girl (At Inversneyde, upon Loch Lomond)
© William Wordsworth
. Sweet Highland Girl, a very shower
Of beauty is thy earthly dower!
To Miss Sarah Siddons
© Frances Anne Kemble
Time beckons on the hours: the expiring year
Already feels old Winter's icy breath;
Unsatisfied
© Oliver Wendell Holmes
"ONLY a housemaid!" She looked from the kitchen,--
Neat was the kitchen and tidy was she;
There at her window a sempstress sat stitching;
"Were I a sempstress, how happy I'd be!"
Spirit of Song
© James Brunton Stephens
Where is thy dwelling-place? Echo of sweetness,
Seraph of tenderness, where is thy home?
The Woman
© Harriet Monroe
Go sleep, my sweetierestrest!
Oh soft little hand on mother's breast!
Oh soft little lipsthe din's mos' gone-
Over and done, my dearie one!
Solomon on the Vanity of the World, A Poem. In Three Books. - Knowledge. Book I.
© Matthew Prior
But, O! ere yet original man was made,
Ere the foundations of this earth were laid,
It was opponent to our search ordain'd,
That joy still sought should never be attain'd:
This sad experience cites me to reveal,
And what I dictate is from what I feel.
To an ingenious young Gentleman, on his dedicating a Poem to the Author.
© Mather Byles
To you, dear Youth, whom all the Muses own,
And great Apollo speaks his darling Son,
Amelia
© Coventry Kersey Dighton Patmore
Whene'er mine eyes do my Amelia greet
It is with such emotion
As when, in childhood, turning a dim street,
I first beheld the ocean.
Up And Down The Lanes Of Love
© Edgar Albert Guest
UP and down the lanes of love,
With the bright blue skies above,
Robin Hood's Flight
© James Henry Leigh Hunt
Robin Hood's mother, these twelve years now,
Has been gone from her earthly home;
And Robin has paid, he scarce knew how,
A sum for a noble tomb.
May and the Poets
© James Henry Leigh Hunt
There is May in books forever;
May will part from Spenser never;
May's in Milton, May's in Prior,
May's in Chaucer, Thomson, Dyer;
The Woodlands
© William Barnes
O spread ageän your leaves an' flow'rs,
Lwonesome woodlands! zunny woodlands!
The Rustic Life.
© Robert Crawford
Happy are ye who can put by the stress
Of so much of the trouble worldlings know;
Ye who seem almost creatures of the woods,
Now animal and now bird-like amid
