Famous Short Sweet Poems

Famous Short Sweet Poems. Short Sweet Poetry by Famous Poets. A collection of the all-time best Sweet short poems

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by Langston Hughes

 What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up
Like a raisin in the sun?

Or fester like a sore--
And then run?

Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.


Or does it explode?

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by Emily Brontë

 Love is like the wild rose-briar,
Friendship like the holly-tree --
The holly is dark when the rose-briar blooms
But which will bloom most contantly?
The wild-rose briar is sweet in the spring,
Its summer blossoms scent the air;
Yet wait till winter comes again
And who wil call the wild-briar fair?
Then scorn the silly rose-wreath now
And deck thee with the holly's sheen,
That when December blights thy brow
He may still leave thy garland green.

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by John Donne

STAY O sweet and do not rise! 
The light that shines comes from thine eyes; 
The day breaks not: it is my heart  
Because that you and I must part.
 
Stay! or else my joys will die 5 
And perish in their infancy.
 

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by William Shakespeare

 O mistress mine, where are you roaming? 
O stay and hear! your true-love's coming 
That can sing both high and low; 
Trip no further, pretty sweeting, 
Journey's end in lovers' meeting-- 
Every wise man's son doth know.
 

What is love? 'tis not hereafter; 
Present mirth hath present laughter; 
What's to come is still unsure: 
In delay there lies no plenty,-- 
Then come kiss me, Sweet and twenty, 
Youth's a stuff will not endure.

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by William Shakespeare

 Hark! hark! the lark at heaven's gate sings,
And Phoebus 'gins arise,
His steeds to water at those springs
On chalic'd flowers that lies;
And winking Mary-buds begin
To ope their golden eyes;
With everything that pretty is,
My lady sweet, arise:
Arise, arise!

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by William Shakespeare

 Under the greenwood tree
Who loves to lie with me,
And turn his merry note
Unto the sweet bird's throat,
Come hither, come hither, come hither:
Here shall he see
No enemy
But winter and rough weather.
 

Who doth ambition shun,
And loves to live i' the sun,
Seeking the food he eats,
And pleas'd with what he gets,
Come hither, come hither, come hither:
Here shall he see
No enemy
But winter and rough weather.

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by Maya Angelou

 Beloved,
In what other lives or lands
Have I known your lips
Your Hands
Your Laughter brave
Irreverent.

Those sweet excesses that
I do adore.

What surety is there
That we will meet again,
On other worlds some
Future time undated.

I defy my body's haste.

Without the promise
Of one more sweet encounter
I will not deign to die.

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by William Blake

 Ah Sun-flower! weary of time.

Who countest the steps of the Sun;
Seeking after that sweet golden clime
Where the travellers journey is done.


Where the Youth pined away with desire,
And the pale Virgin shrouded in snow:
Arise from their graves and aspire.

Where my Sun-flower wishes to go.

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by William Shakespeare

 HARK! hark! the lark at heaven's gate sings, 
 And Phoebus 'gins arise, 
His steeds to water at those springs 
 On chaliced flowers that lies; 
And winking Mary-buds begin 
 To ope their golden eyes: 
With everything that pretty bin, 
 My lady sweet, arise! 
 Arise, arise!

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by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

 It was a face which darkness could kill
     in an instant
a face as easily hurt
   by laughter or light

 'We think differently at night'
     she told me once
lying back languidly

   And she would quote Cocteau

'I feel there is an angel in me' she'd say
    'whom I am constantly shocking'

 Then she would smile and look away 
 light a cigarette for me
    sigh and rise

and stretch
 her sweet anatomy

   let fall a stocking

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by William Blake

 A flower was offered to me;
Such a flower as May never bore.

But I said I've a Pretty Rose-tree.

And I passed the sweet flower o'er.


Then I went to my Pretty Rose-tree:
To tend her by day and by night.

But my Rose turnd away with jealousy:
And her thorns were my only delight.

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by Langston Hughes

 I could take the Harlem night
and wrap around you,
Take the neon lights and make a crown,
Take the Lenox Avenue busses,
Taxis, subways,
And for your love song tone their rumble down.

Take Harlem's heartbeat,
Make a drumbeat,
Put it on a record, let it whirl,
And while we listen to it play,
Dance with you till day--
Dance with you, my sweet brown Harlem girl.

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by A E Housman

 O why do you walk through the fields in boots,
Missing so much and so much?
O fat white woman whom nobody shoots,
Why do you walk through the fields in boots,
When the grass is soft as the breast of coots
And shivering-sweet to the touch?

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by Walter de la Mare

 Nay, nay, sweet England, do not grieve! 
Not one of these poor men who died 
But did within his soul believe 
That death for thee was glorified.
 

Ever they watched it hovering near 
That mystery 'yond thought to plumb, 
Perchance sometimes in loathèd fear 
They heard cold Danger whisper, Come! -- 

Heard and obeyed.
 O, if thou weep 
Such courage and honour, beauty, care, 
Be it for joy that those who sleep 
Only thy joy could share.

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by William Cullen Bryant

 There is wind where the rose was, 
Cold rain where sweet grass was, 
And clouds like sheep 
Stream o'er the steep 
Grey skies where the lark was.
 

Nought warm where your hand was, 
Nought gold where your hair was, 
But phantom, forlorn, 
Beneath the thorn, 
Your ghost where your face was.
 

Cold wind where your voice was, 
Tears, tears where my heart was, 
And ever with me, 
Child, ever with me, 
Silence where hope was.

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by Edward Estlin (E E) Cummings

O sweet spontaneous
earth how often have
the
doting

fingers of
prurient philosophers pinched
and
poked

thee
has the naughty thumb
of science prodded
thy

beauty .
how
often have religions taken
thee upon their scraggy knees
squeezing and

buffeting thee that thou mightest conceive
gods
(but
true

to the incomparable
couch of death thy
rhythmic
lover

thou answerest

them only with

spring)

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by Christina Rossetti

 Sleep, little Baby, sleep,
The holy Angels love thee,
And guard thy bed, and keep
A blessed watch above thee.

No spirit can come near
Nor evil beast to harm thee:
Sleep, Sweet, devoid of fear
Where nothing need alarm thee.


The Love which doth not sleep,
The eternal arms around thee:
The shepherd of the sheep
In perfect love has found thee.

Sleep through the holy night,
Christ-kept from snare and sorrow,
Until thou wake to light
And love and warmth to-morrow.

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by Percy Bysshe Shelley

 Good-night? ah! no; the hour is ill
Which severs those it should unite;
Let us remain together still,
Then it will be good night.


How can I call the lone night good,
Though thy sweet wishes wing its flight?
Be it not said, thought, understood --
Then it will be -- good night.


To hearts which near each other move
From evening close to morning light,
The night is good; because, my love,
They never say good-night.

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by Edgar Allan Poe

 At morn- at noon- at twilight dim-
Maria! thou hast heard my hymn!
In joy and woe- in good and ill-
Mother of God, be with me still!
When the hours flew brightly by,
And not a cloud obscured the sky,
My soul, lest it should truant be,
Thy grace did guide to thine and thee;
Now, when storms of Fate o'ercast
Darkly my Present and my Past,
Let my Future radiant shine
With sweet hopes of thee and thine!

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by William Shakespeare

 Orpheus with his lute made trees,
And the mountain tops that freeze,
Bow themselves, when he did sing:
To his music plants and flowers
Ever sprung; as sun and showers
There had made a lasting spring.


Everything that heard him play,
Even the billows of the sea,
Hung their heads, and then lay by.

In sweet music is such art,
Killing care and grief of heart
Fall asleep, or hearing, die.

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by Gerard Manley Hopkins

 Repeat that, repeat,
Cuckoo, bird, and open ear wells, heart-springs, delightfully sweet,
With a ballad, with a ballad, a rebound 
Off trundled timber and scoops of the hillside ground, hollow hollow hollow ground:
The whole landscape flushes on a sudden at a sound.

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by William Blake

 England! awake! awake! awake! 
Jerusalem thy Sister calls! 
Why wilt thou sleep the sleep of death 
And close her from thy ancient walls? 

Thy hills and valleys felt her feet 
Gently upon their bosoms move: 
Thy gates beheld sweet Zion's ways: 
Then was a time of joy and love.
 

And now the time returns again: 
Our souls exult, and London's towers 
Receive the Lamb of God to dwell 
In England's green and pleasant bowers.

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by Robert Herrick

 Love is a circle, that doth restless move
In the same sweet eternity of Love.

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by Alexander Pushkin

 She substituted, by a chance,
For empty "you" -- the gentle "thou";
And all my happy dreams, at once,
In loving heart again resound.

In bliss and silence do I stay,
Unable to maintain my role:
"Oh, how sweet you are!" I say --
"How I love thee!" says my soul.

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by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

 When the summer fields are mown, 
When the birds are fledged and flown, 
And the dry leaves strew the path; 
With the falling of the snow, 
With the cawing of the crow, 
Once again the fields we mow 
And gather in the aftermath.
 
Not the sweet, new grass with flowers 
Is this harvesting of ours; 
Not the upland clover bloom; 
But the rowen mixed with weeds, 
Tangled tufts from marsh and meads, 
Where the poppy drops its seeds 
In the silence and the gloom.

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