Happy poems
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Oh! Mr. Malthus!
© Stephen Leacock
Turn back to Malthus as he walked o'er English Fields and Downs
And walked at night the crooked Streets of crooked English Towns,
Lifeless, undying, Shade or Man, as one that could not die
A hundred years his Shadow fell, a hundred Years to lie,
The Shadow on the Window Pane when Malthus' Ghost went by.
Psalm LXXXIV. (84)
© John Milton
How lovely are thy dwellings fair!
O Lord of Hoasts, how dear
The pleasant Tabernacles are!
Where thou do'st dwell so near.
One Day
© Rupert Brooke
So lightly I played with those dark memories,
Just as a child, beneath the summer skies,
Plays hour by hour with a strange shining stone,
For which (he knows not) towns were fire of old,
And love has been betrayed, and murder done,
And great kings turned to a little bitter mould.
Romance Moderne
© William Carlos Williams
Mountains. Elephants humping along
against the skyindifferent to
light withdrawing its tattered shreds,
worn out with embraces. It's
the fillip of novelty. It's a fire in the blood.
Danse Russe
© William Carlos Williams
If when my wife is sleeping
and the baby and Kathleen
are sleeping
and the sun is a flame-white disc
The Oats
© Jeppe Aakjaer
Here I stand with tinkling bells galore,
Twenty on each straw, I think, or more.
But the farmer, bless his honest soul,
Calls me oats and speaks of twenty fold.
Which Shall It Be
© Ethel Lynn Eliot Beers
Pale, patient Robbie's angel face
Still in his sleep bore suffering's trace;
``No, for a thousand crowns, not him,''
He whispered, while our eyes were dim.
The Princess (part 2)
© Alfred Tennyson
At break of day the College Portress came:
She brought us Academic silks, in hue
The Shepherd's Dog
© Mary Darby Robinson
I.A Shepherd's Dog there was; and he
Was faithful to his master's will,
For well he lov'd his company,
Along the plain or up the hill;
The Poor Singing Dame
© Mary Darby Robinson
Beneath an old wall, that went round an old Castle,
For many a year, with brown ivy o'erspread;
A neat little Hovel, its lowly roof raising,
Defied the wild winds that howl'd over its shed:
Stanzas to the Rose
© Mary Darby Robinson
SWEET PICTURE of Life's chequer'd hour!
Ah, wherefore droop thy blushing head?
Tell me, oh tell me, hap'less flow'r,
Is it because thy charms are fled?
Come, gentle ROSE, and learn from me
A lesson of Philosophy.
Interval of Joy
© Giorgos Seferis
"É cannot explain it," you said, "É cannot explain it,"
É find people impossible to understand
however much they may play with colors
they are all black.
Wandering Singers
© Sarojini Naidu
WHERE the voice of the wind calls our wandering feet,
Through echoing forest and echoing street,
Conscience
© Robert Southwell
My conscience is my crown;
Contented thoughts my rest;
My heart is happy in itself;
My bliss is in my breast.
Ode to the Nightingale
© Mary Darby Robinson
Restless and sadI sought once more
A calm retreat on BRITAIN's shore;
Deceitful HOPE, e'en there I found
That soothing FRIENDSHIP's specious name
Was but a short-liv'd empty sound,
And LOVE a false delusive flame.
The Two Sides Of The River
© William Morris
O Winter, O white winter, wert thou gone
No more within the wilds were I alone
Leaping with bent bow over stock and stone!
