Skip to content

Scottish Poetry Library

Register/Sign in
Shopping Bag Shopping Bag
Bringing people and poems together
  • Home
  • Poetry
    • Poets
    • Poems
    • Film
    • Podcasts
    • Makar – National Poet
    • Best Scottish Poems
    • Poetry Ambassadors
      Tosgairean na Bàrdachd
  • Library
    • Become a borrower
    • Catalogue
    • Collections
    • Ask a librarian
    • Copyright enquiries
  • Learning
    • SQA set texts
    • Learning resources
    • Children’s poems in Scots
    • National Poetry Day archive
    • New to poetry?
    • Advice for poets
  • Events
    • What’s On
    • Meeting rooms and venue hire
    • Exhibitions
  • Shop
    • Poetry Highlights
    • Stichill Marigold Press
    • Poems for Doctors, Nurses & Teachers
    • Scottish Poetry
    • Poetry Pamphlet Cards
    • Help
  • About us
    • Our story
    • Our people
    • Company Papers & Policies
    • FAQs
    • Find us
    • Contact us
  • Support us
    • Become a Friend
    • Donate
  • Blog
Shopping BagShopping Bag
Ask a librarian
  • Home
  • >
  • Poetry
  • >
  • happiness
Donate Donate icon Ask a Librarian Ask a Librarian icon

happiness

New Mother - by Janette Ayachi

{ Poem }

I folded the scan picture like a brewing secret

gave a copy to my mother, the gift of birth passed down
the hands of women

Old Christmastide - by Sir Walter Scott

{ Poem }

Heap on more wood! the wind is chill;
But let it whistle as it will,
We’ll keep our Christmas merry still.
Each age has deem’d the new-born year
The fittest time for festal cheer

Good Old Days - by Elma Mitchell

{ Poem }

My neck, where love ran
/ Just under the skin
/ Is now an old rickety ladder to the brain.
/
/ My breasts, a full delight…

Women Friends - by Pauline Prior-Pitt

{ Poem }

wise women
welcome as sunshine
spreading delight

On Hearing for the First Time - by Carole Bromley

{ Poem }

‘It sounds very very high’
/
/ and she sobs for the joy of it,
/ for the reds and blues of it,
/ the shock, the…

Poem for a Hospital Wall - by Diana Hendry

{ Poem }

Love has been loitering
/ down this corridor
/ has been seen
/ chatting up out-patients
/ spinning the wheels of wheelchairs
/ fluttering the pulse of the night nurse
/ appearing,…

Yesterday in Laggan - by Gordon Jarvie

{ Poem }

It was such a day
/ of sunshine wall to wall,
/ of heat haze and the year’s first frogs,
/ of blue hills stretching…

I Am Carrying Happiness - by Maria Jastrzebska

{ Poem }

I am happy
/ it’s so simple
/
/ I am carrying happiness
/ in my hands
/ …

Scotland - by Alastair Reid

{ Poem }

‘We’ll pay for it, we’ll pay for it, we’ll pay for it!’…

Gift - by Czesław Miłosz

{ Poem }

A day so happy.
/ Fog lifted early, I worked in the garden.
/ Hummingbirds were stopping over honeysuckle flowers.
/ There was no thing on…

Happy Thought - by Robert Louis Stevenson

{ Poem }

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

Fall, Leaves, Fall - by Emily Bronte

{ Poem }

Fall, leaves, fall; die, flowers, away;
Lengthen night and shorten day;
Every leaf speaks bliss to me
Fluttering from the autumn tree.

1 2 Next
  • Newsletter signup
  • Accessibility
  • Terms & Conditions
  • Privacy Policy
Scottish Poetry Library
5 Crichton's Close, Canongate
Edinburgh EH8 8DT
Tel: +44 (0)131 557 2876
© Scottish Poetry Library 2022.
The Scottish Poetry Library is a registered charity (No. SCO23311).
City of Edinburgh logo Green Arts Initiative logo Creative Scotland logo
Scottish Poetry Library