“You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.” —C. S. Lewis

A well-said line to begin our list of poems about happiness: I believe that everyone has different ways to seek comfort and feel happy, be it food, exercise, painting. Everyone is different, but there is a huge part of this world that relies on words and the smell of a book that comforts them in words that cannot be described. I’m one of those persons and what helps me more is poems. The rhythm and the rhyming, and clever use of words and hidden meanings make me forget about my worries in a minute.

So here we are, with a list of poems about happiness to make your worries go away.

The greatest writers of all time wrote some literature which is itself an art. It is till date studied on university levels, students write papers on them and the beautiful pieces of text they have written decades before our time.

Poems About Happiness

1. Happiness is When

The first one in our list of poems about happiness is by the great William Arthur Ward, and the name is happiness. He is known for his motivational writing, which was published in many famous magazines.

Happiness is our heritage when
Faith becomes our constant companion;
Self-discipline our tireless teacher;
Integrity our competent coach;
Truth our trusted tutor;
Discernment our careful critic;
Optimism our able advisor;
Goodness, our gifted guide;
Beauty our infallible inspiration;
And love our blissful benediction.

The poem itself starts with the word happiness. Ward talks about feeling happiness when faith turns into our constant companion, loves our prayers and blessings, and talks about optimism, truth, and integrity. This poem about happiness is full of hope; it makes you feel good about yourself and motivates you to be happy with yourself.

2. Amoretti

The word “Amoretti” literally means little cupids or little loves. Edmund Spenser writes the poem, and he is considered one of the greatest poets in English Literature.

In our list of poems about happiness, one of the sonnets appears on our list, and it goes like this.

Oft, when my spirit doth spread her bolder wings,
In mind to mount up to the purest sky;
It down is weighed with thought of earthly things,
And clogged with 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 …

In the sonnet, Spenser talks about how his thoughts don’t let him think about the bigger things of life, the thoughts about life-ending one day and being a mortal. But in the end, Spenser concludes that the best way to be happy and is to feel happiness and beauty in earthly things.

3. A Birthday

The poem “A Birthday” is written by Christina Rosetti. The title of the poem makes you understand its appearance on our list of poems about happiness. The poem makes you remember all the happy things that happened at your birthdays over the years.

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 …

Since the first line, the poet talks about singing birds, there is joy and happiness. The poem “A Birthday” by Rosetti talks about the birthday of her life in a way that her love has come to her. The poem talks about apple trees, rainbows and in the end, she says that her love has come to her. These poems about happiness and the writer Christina Rosetti are said to be one of the finest writers of the Victorian Era, and her writings are truly beautiful.

4. How Happy Is The Little Stone

This poem about happiness is by the writer Emily Dickinson. She is said to be one of the greatest poets in American history. The poem “How Happy is the little stone” is a ten-lined poem and from on outlook of a rambling stone. It goes by like this:

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—

Dickinson talks about the life of nature; in the poem, that thing is a stone. The poet notices and observes the life of the stone and how it goes by life without any complications and allows itself to exist in the universe. Unlike humans, the stone does not worry like humans and enjoys the simple happiness of life and seeks pleasure out of it. In this poem about the happiness of a stone, Dickinson makes her readers realize the simple happiness one can achieve from just observing nature.

5. I Thank God for this Most Amazing

This invigorating title beams of joy and excitement. This poem about happiness is by E.E. Cummings; he was an American poet, playwright, and author. He has written over 2 thousand poems and several essays.

In this poem about happiness, “I Thank God for this most amazing,” Cummings talks about his rebirth spiritually and how he now looks at the world as if it be like he is looking at the world for the first time.

The poem goes by like this:

I thank You, God for most this amazing
day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any—lifted from the no
of all nothing—human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

In this poem, firstly, I’d like to point out the writing style of Cummings; he deliberately went with a lowercase I and capitalized the first letter of god and the word “you.” By this writing style, he meant to show that God is above everything, and then the readers come from him, and then, he comes in the end as levels of importance. The letters were well-thought-out and hence, the lowercased and uppercased letters.

The poem only by the title reflects thankfulness and joy, and it is the perfect piece of writing to read on a sunny day.

6. I Wandered Lonely As a Cloud

The poem is by William Wordsworth, as it may not seem like a poem about happiness by the title, but it actually is. Wordsworth has written some of the most influential texts in his time in Western Literature. This poem about happiness has 4 stanzas, but below is my favorite stanza, and it goes by like this:

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.

This poem about happiness is rich when it comes to making you imagine the entire scene. It is a masterpiece for its descriptions of the surroundings. The poem is about taking in the beauty of nature; the poet talks about his experience when he comes into a field of Daffodils which is beside a lake. The poem majorly makes you believe that you don’t have to go somewhere to find happiness and feel it. Happiness lies in your memories like he did when he went to a field of Daffodils.

7. I’m Happy

This poem about happiness is by Sri Chinmoy, who is an Indian spiritual leader. The poem goes by like this:

I believe everybody;
Therefore
I am happy.
I love everybody;
Therefore
I am happy.
I think of God every day, everywhere;
Therefore I am happy.
I am happy, I am always happy
Because
Heaven lives for the cries of my heart
And Earth lives for the smiles of my soul.

The spiritual guru talks about him being happy by believing in everyone and loving everyone. He thinks of god every day and everywhere. The poet talks and motivates you to be self-sufficient; he maintains his mindset and heart not to be occupied with negativity.

8. Happy Thought

This little poem about happiness is by Robert Louis Stevenson, and it goes by like this:

The world is so full of a number of things
I’m sure we should all be as happy as kings.

This two-lined poem about happiness makes you smile by reading it.  As you read “Happy as Kings,” and it makes you happy with a small thought of being a king. It may be just so tiny to think about, but in the end, it is the little things that can make you smile. And I believe Stevenson did that magic so effortlessly in just these two lines.

Many great writers have, over the decades, written some amazing art. Art which still makes you in awe of it. These were a few examples handpicked for poems about happiness.

Icy Tales

Last Updated on October 14, 2023 by Saket Kumar