Poems About Happiness (to Make You Cheerful and Happy)

Poems about Happiness 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

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.

Happiness is fleeting, fickle, and precious. This elusiveness means that moments of true happiness often remain affixed in our minds—beautiful and cherished.

The following poems are 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.

1. Oft, When My Spirit Doth Spread Her Bolder Wings by Edmund Spenser

Oft, when my spirit doth spread her bolder wings,
In mind to mount up to the purest sky;
It down is weighed with the thought of earthly things,
And clogged with the burden of mortality;
Where, when that sovereign beauty it doth spy,
Resembling heaven’s glory in her light,
Drawn with sweet pleasure’s bait, it back doth fly,
And unto heaven forgets her former flight.

There my frail fancy, fed with full delight,
Doth bathe in bliss, and mantleth most at ease;
Ne thinks of other heaven, but how it might
Her heart’s desire with most contentment please.
Heart need not wish none other happiness,
But here on earth to have such heaven’s bliss.

2. I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud by William Wordsworth

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed – and gazed – but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

3. A Birthday by Christina Rossetti

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;
My heart is like a rainbow shell
That paddles in a halcyon sea;
My heart is gladder than all these
Because my love is come to me.

Raise me a dais of silk and down;
Hang it with vair and purple dyes;
Carve it in doves and pomegranates,
And peacocks with a hundred eyes;
Work it in gold and silver grapes,
In leaves and silver fleurs-de-lys;
Because the birthday of my life
Is come, my love is come to me.

4. Coming by Philip Larkin

On longer evenings,
Light, chill and yellow,
Bathes the serene
Foreheads of houses.
A thrush sings,
Laurel-surrounded
In the deep bare garden,
Its fresh-peeled voice
Astonishing the brickwork.

It will be spring soon,
It will be spring soon—
And I, whose childhood
Is a forgotten boredom,
Feel like a child
Who comes on a scene
Of adult reconciling,
And can understand nothing
But the unusual laughter,
And starts to be happy.

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5. The Sun has Burst the Sky by Jenny Joseph

The sun has burst the sky
Because I love you
And the river its banks.

The sea laps the great rocks
Because I love you
And takes no heed of the moon dragging it away
And saying coldly ‘Constancy is not for you’.
The blackbird fills the air
Because I love you
With spring and lawns and shadows falling on lawns.

The people walk in the street and laugh
I love you
And far down the river ships sound their hooters
Crazy with joy because I love you.

6. The Choice is Mine by Abimbola T. Alabi

Life may not let me choose my lot,
But whether I’d be happy or not…
That is my choice.

To leave hurtful memories behind
Or allow them to bother my mind…
The choice is mine.

To fret over a mistake when it’s done
Or learn from it and move on…
The choice is mine.

To be bothered by all that people say
Or ignore them and go my own way…
The choice is mine.

To hide my feelings, pent up, unspoken,
Or say my mind and ease the burden…
The choice is mine.

To enjoy what I’ve been able to gain
Or ungratefully regard it with disdain…
The choice is mine.
Sometimes I won’t get to pick my lot,
But whether I’ll be happy or not
Will always be my choice.

7. Sometimes by Sheenagh Pugh

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.

A people sometimes will step back from war;
elect an honest man, decide they care
enough, that they can’t leave some stranger poor.
Some men become what they were born for.

Sometimes our best efforts do not go
amiss, sometimes we do as we meant to.
The sun will sometimes melt a field of sorrow
that seemed hard frozen: may it happen for you.

8. How Happy is the Little Stone by Emily Dickinson

How happy is the little Stone
That rambles in the Road alone,
And doesn’t care about Careers
And Exigencies never fears —
Whose Coat of elemental Brown
A passing Universe put on,
And independent as the Sun
Associates or glows alone,
Fulfilling absolute Decree
In casual simplicity

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9. Ode to Happiness by Keanu Reeves

Half-sentences, half-utterances searching in the past,
grappling, groping, never last.
In my body, in my heart, and in my mind,
but not on my tongue!
And so my song remains unsung.

I draw a hot sorrow bath
In my despair room
With a misery candle burning
I wash my hair with regret shampoo
After cleaning myself with pain soap
I dry myself with my gorgeous white

One hundred percent and it will never change towel
Then smooth on my I don’t deserve lotion
And I hate myself face cream
Then I put on my alone again silk pajamas
And go to sleep
When the hue has gone blue
And you can’t quite grin and bear it
Let this word picture remind you
It can always be worse.

10. Happiness by Louise Gluck

A man and a woman lie on a white bed.
It is morning. I think
Soon they will waken.
On the bedside table is a vase
of lilies; sunlight
pools in their throats.

I watch him turn to her
as though to speak her name
but silently, deep in her mouth–
At the window ledge,
once, twice,
a bird calls.
And then she stirs; her body
fills with his breath.

I open my eyes; you are watching me.
Almost over this room
the sun is gliding.
Look at your face, you say,
holding your own close to me
to make a mirror.
How calm you are. And the burning wheel
passes gently over us.

11. Innermost Happiness by Ernestine Northover

Let’s go find that great blue yonder,
Far away from noise and rush,
A place where one can sit and ponder,
Silently, in a cocoon of hush.

With solitude, to rest one’s senses,
Some time to grasp what life’s about,
To knock down all those rigid fences,
And let your wildest thoughts fly out.

Allow for all your hopes to wander,
Into dreams that calm the mind,
And use the time in that great blue yonder,
Your innermost happiness to find.

12. Happiness and Vision by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

TOGETHER at the altar we
In vision oft were seen by thee,

Thyself as bride, as bridegroom I.
Oft from thy mouth full many a kiss
In an unguarded hour of bliss

I then would steal, while none were by.
The purest rapture we then knew,
The joy those happy hours gave too,

When tasted, fled, as time fleets on.
What now avails my joy to me?
Like dreams the warmest kisses flee,
Like kisses, soon all joys are gone.

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13. True Happiness by Gabriell Davis

The warmth of the sun,
The touch of your hand,
The waves against my feet,
This is true happiness.

My father’s smile,
My mother’s laughter,
My brother’s love,

This is true happiness.
Making you laugh,
Making you smile,
Making you see that there’s more to me,
This is true happiness.

Doing this,
Writing,
Feeling, emoting,
This is true happiness.

Dancing, but not only dancing,
Giving it my whole, my being,
Becoming the dance,
This is true happiness.

Seeing your face when you realize
That I’m always me, with or without you.
Me realizing that I don’t need you.
This is true happiness.

This poem gives happiness a level of complexity rarely discussed in a typical day-to-day context. How well can one get the description of true happiness? How standard are its measures or is it selective?

These and many more will be discussed in our next issue. For now read and digest these poems on happiness and ensure to share them with the once you wish to be happy.

Daily Time Poems.

Poems About Happiness (to Make You Cheerful and Happy)