Happiness poems
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The Poor Can Feed the Birds
© John Shaw Neilson
Ragged, unheeded, stooping, meanly shod,
The poor pass to the pond: not far away
The spires go up to God.
Girl At Her Devotions. By Newton
© Letitia Elizabeth Landon
SHE was just risen from her bended knee,
But yet peace seem'd not with her piety;
Ode To A Mountain-Torrent (From The German Of Stolberg)
© George Borrow
How lovely art thou in thy tresses of foam,
And yet the warm blood in my bosom grows chill,
When yelling thou rollest thee down from thy home,
Mid the boom of the echoing forest and hill.
The Task : Complete
© William Cowper
In man or woman, but far most in man,
And most of all in man that ministers
And serves the altar, in my soul I loathe
All affectation. 'Tis my perfect scorn;
Object of my implacable disgust.
The Village (book 2)
© George Crabbe
NO longer truth, though shown in verse, disdain,
But own the village life a life of pain;
I too must yield, that oft amid these woes
Are gleams of transient mirth and hours of sweet repose.
Hunger
© Arthur Rimbaud
Beneath the bush a wolf will howl, Spitting bright feathers
From his feast of fowl: Like him, I devour myself.
Waiting to be gathered, Fruits and grasses spend their hours;
The spider spinning in the hedge, Eats only flowers.
Let me sleep! Let me boil, On the altars of Solomon;
Let me soak the rusty soil, And flow into Kendron.
A Friend
© Lionel Pigot Johnson
All, that he came to give,
He gave, and went again:
I have seen one man live,
I have seen one man reign,
With all the graces in his train.
Vignettes Overseas
© Sara Teasdale
I. Off Gilbatrar
BEYOND the sleepy hills of Spain,
The sun goes down in yellow mist,
The sky is fresh with dewy stars
Sonnet: Political Greatness
© Percy Bysshe Shelley
Nor happiness, nor majesty, nor fame,
Nor peace, nor strength, nor skill in arms or arts,
Shepherd those herds whom tyranny makes tame;
Verse echoes not one beating of their hearts,
The Library
© George Crabbe
When the sad soul, by care and grief oppress'd,
Looks round the world, but looks in vain for rest;
The Door Of Humility
© Alfred Austin
ENGLAND
We lead the blind by voice and hand,
And not by light they cannot see;
We are not framed to understand
The How and Why of such as He;
The Prayer
© Arthur Symons
Dear, if I might love better for your sake,
I would not care though you should love me less;
I love you more than to consent to take
Happiness and not give you happiness.
The Laughter of Women by Mary-Sherman Willis: American Life in Poetry #168 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Lau
© Ted Kooser
So often, reading a poem can in itself feel like a thing overheard. Here, Mary-Sherman Willis of Virginia describes the feeling of being stilled by conversation, in this case barely audible and nearly indecipherable.
The Laughter of Women
From over the wall I could hear the laughter of women
in a foreign tongue, in the sun-rinsed air of the city.
They sat (so I thought) perfumed in their hats and their silks,
Tauler
© John Greenleaf Whittier
And as he walked he prayed. Even the same
Old prayer with which, for half a score of years,
Morning, and noon, and evening, lip and heart
Had groaned: "Have pity upon me, Lord!
Thou seest, while teaching others, I am blind.
Send me a man who can direct my steps!"
Consolation In Adversity
© Johannes Carsten Hauch
WHEN happiness turns from you,
And all seems unrepaid,
And you are scorned by enemies,
Even by friends betrayed;
The Elm
© Robert Laurence Binyon
O that I had a tongue, that could express
Half of that peace thou ownest, darkling Tree!
A slumber, shaded with the heaviness
That droops thy leaves, hangs deeply over me.
The Rosy Bosomd Hours
© Coventry Kersey Dighton Patmore
A florin to the willing Guard
Secured, for half the way,
