15 Poems About Happiness To Reset Your Day
Poetry has power, and one of its greatest powers is to let you step into a moment or a feeling with another person and think “Yes, I’ve felt that too”. If you don’t have an exact experience that maps onto the one in the poem, reading poetry can still be a wonderful way to find common ground, and gain an inkling of what it may be like to see the world through the poet’s eyes. Poetry deals with all aspects of the human experience, and all feelings – and sometimes, it’s wonderful to step into a moment of happiness and share it with the poet. Poems about happiness can lift us up when we feel down, and remind us that there’s good in the world even when things seem bleak.
The following poems about happiness explore what it is to be happy in lots of forms, for lots of reasons – whether it’s brimming, bubbling happiness, quiet contentment, or something a little more complicated and bittersweet. There are poems that explore happiness in relationships, the fun of celebrations, the fierce happiness that we find when we discover our own power, the quiet contentment of fully experiencing the world around you, and the joy of playing with language. I hope that, however you’re feeling, they brighten your day.
Poems About Happiness
A Birthday by Christina Rossetti
Excerpt:
My heart is like a singing bird
Whose nest is in a water’d shoot;
My heart is like an apple-tree
Whose boughs are bent with thickset fruit;
Phenomenal Woman by Maya Angelou
Excerpt:
Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
I’m not cute or built to suit a fashion model’s size
But when I start to tell them,
They think I’m telling lies.
Happy Eid Fitr! by Sukasah Syahdan
Strawberries by Edwin Morgan
Excerpt:
There were never strawberries
like the ones we had
that sultry afternoon
sitting on the step
of the open french window
facing each other
your knees held in mine
Ah, Ah by Joy Harjo
Excerpt:
Ah, ah cries the crow arching toward the heavy sky over the marina.
Lands on the crown of the palm tree.
Ah, ah slaps the urgent cove of ocean swimming through the slips.
We carry canoes to the edge of the salt.
Happiness (Reconsidered) by Judith Viorst
Excerpt:
Happiness
Is a clean bill of health from the doctor,
And the kids shouldn’t move back home for
more than a year,
And not being audited, overdrawn, in Wilkes-Barre,
in a lawsuit or in traction.
Unbeatable Serena by Bridget Minamore
In this piece, performance poet Bridget Minamore explores the joy inspired by a champion.
Christmas by John Clare
Christmas is come and every hearth
Makes room to give him welcome now
E’en want will dry its tears in mirth
And crown him wi’ a holly bough
Tho tramping ‘neath a winters sky
O’er snow track paths and rhymey stiles
The huswife sets her spining bye
And bids him welcome wi’ her smiles
Each house is swept the day before
And windows stuck wi’ evergreens
The snow is beesom’d from the door
And comfort crowns the cottage scenes
Gilt holly wi’ its thorny pricks
And yew and box wi’ berrys small
These deck the unus’d candlesticks
And pictures hanging by the wall
This is just a sample of John Clare’s poem, as it’s pretty long – check out the full version here.
Dis Poetry by Benjamin Zephaniah
Sometimes by Sheenagh Pugh
Excerpt:
Sometimes things don’t go, after all,
from bad to worse. Some years, muscadel
faces down frost; green thrives; the crops don’t fail,
sometimes a man aims high, and all goes well.
How happy is the little Stone by Emily Dickinson
Excerpt:
How happy is the little Stone
That rambles in the Road alone,
And doesn’t care about Careers
And Exigencies never fears —
Hill Rolling by Andrew Taylor
Excerpt:
I kind of exploded inside,
and joy shot out of me.
I began my roll down the grassy hill.
I bent my knees up small, took a deep breath
and I was off.
Nessie by Rachel Plummer
Honey, I Love by Eloise Greenfield
Excerpt:
I love
I love a lot of things, a whole lot of things
Like
My cousin comes to visit and you know he’s from the South
‘Cause every word he says just kind of slides out of his mouth
I like the way he whistles and I like the way he walks
But honey, let me tell you that I LOVE the way he talks
I love the way my cousin talks
Cats by Jim Howell
Excerpt:
Cats
have eyes that yawn,
green
as a halt sign
For the happiness (and everything else!) that comes with love, read 58 Absolutely Beautiful Love Poems. If you’re looking for happy prose, try 100 Must-Read Books About Happiness.
