Famous Short Riddle Poems
Famous Short Riddle Poems. Short Riddle Poetry by Famous Poets. A collection of the all-time best Riddle short poems
by
Emily Dickinson
Some things that fly there be --
Birds -- Hours -- the Bumblebee --
Of these no Elegy.
Some things that stay there be --
Grief -- Hills -- Eternity --
Nor this behooveth me.
There are that resting, rise.
Can I expound the skies?
How still the Riddle lies!
by
Sylvia Plath
I'm a riddle in nine syllables,
An elephant, a ponderous house,
A melon strolling on two tendrils.
O red fruit, ivory, fine timbers!
This loaf's big with its yeasty rising.
Money's new-minted in this fat purse.
I'm a means, a stage, a cow in calf.
I've eaten a bag of green apples,
Boarded the train there's no getting off.
by
Patrick Kavanagh
Every old man I see
Reminds me of my father
When he had fallen in love with death
One time when sheaves were gathered.
That man I saw in Gardner Street
Stumbled on the kerb was one,
He stared at me half-eyed,
I might have been his son.
And I remember the musician
Faltering over his fiddle
In Bayswater, London,
He too set me the riddle.
Every old man I see
In October-coloured weather
Seems to say to me:
"I was once your father.
"
by
Richard Wilbur
Where far in forest I am laid,
In a place ringed around by stones,
Look for no melancholy shade,
And have no thoughts of buried bones;
For I am bodiless and bright,
And fill this glade with sudden glow;
The leaves are washed in under-light;
Shade lies upon the boughs like snow.
by
Mother Goose
Flour of England, fruit of Spain,
Met together in a shower of rain;
Put in a bag tied round with a string;
If you'll tell me this riddle,
I'll give you a ring.
by
Amir Khosrow
She wears a round skirt, stands on one leg,
That lady has eight legs,
and looks like a fairy.
Everyone wants her,
Muslim, Hindu, Chhatri (of warrior caste).
Khosrow asks this riddle,
just think about it.
by
Amir Khosrow
Was lovable when little (or lit),
but was worthless when grown up (or extinguished)
Khusro has told you his name,
solve this riddle or get out of town.
by
Richard Wilbur
Shall I love God for causing me to be?
I was mere utterance; shall these words love me?
Yet when I caused His work to jar and stammer,
And one free subject loosened all His grammar,
I love Him that He did not in a rage
Once and forever rule me off the page,
But, thinking I might come to please Him yet,
Crossed out 'delete' and wrote His patient 'stet'.
by
Mother Goose
As I went through the garden gap,
Who should I meet but Dick Red-cap!
A stick in his hand, a stone in his throat,--
If you'll tell me this riddle, I'll give you a groat.
by
Elinor Wylie
BARCAROLE ON THE STYX
Fair youth with the rose at your lips,
A riddle is hid in your eyes;
Discard conversational quips,
Give over elaborate disguise.
The rose's funeral breath
Confirms by intuitive fears;
To prove your devotion, Sir Death,
Avaunt for a dozen of years.
But do not forget to array
Your terror in juvenile charms;
I shall deeply regret my delay
If I sleep in a skeleton's arms.
by
Mother Goose
A riddle, a riddle, as I suppose,
A hundred eyes and never a nose!
by
Mother Goose
Read my riddle, I pray.
What God never sees,
What the king seldom sees,
What we see every day.
by
Emily Dickinson
I haven't told my garden yet --
Lest that should conquer me.
I haven't quite the strength now
To break it to the Bee --
I will not name it in the street
For shops would stare at me --
That one so shy -- so ignorant
Should have the face to die.
The hillsides must not know it --
Where I have rambled so --
Nor tell the loving forests
The day that I shall go --
Nor lisp it at the table --
Nor heedless by the way
Hint that within the Riddle
One will walk today --
by
Emily Dickinson
The Riddle we can guess
We speedily despise --
Not anything is stale so long
As Yesterday's surprise --
by
Emily Dickinson
If those I loved were lost
The Crier's voice would tell me --
If those I loved were found
The bells of Ghent would ring --
Did those I loved repose
The Daisy would impel me.
Philip -- when bewildered
Bore his riddle in!
by
Carl Sandburg
THE SHEETS of night mist travel a long valley.
I know why you came at sundown in a scarf mist.
What was it we touched asking nothing and asking all?
How many times can death come and pay back what we saw?
In the oath of the sod, the lips that swore,
In the oath of night mist, nothing and all,
A riddle is here no man tells, no woman.
by
Emily Dickinson
Under the Light, yet under,
Under the Grass and the Dirt,
Under the Beetle's Cellar
Under the Clover's Root,
Further than Arm could stretch
Were it Giant long,
Further than Sunshine could
Were the Day Year long,
Over the Light, yet over,
Over the Arc of the Bird --
Over the Comet's chimney --
Over the Cubit's Head,
Further than Guess can gallop
Further than Riddle ride --
Oh for a Disc to the Distance
Between Ourselves and the Dead!
by
Omar Khayyam
These people string their beads of learned lumber,
And tell of Allah stories without number;
Yet never solve the riddle of the skies,
But wag the chin, and get them back to slumber.
by
Omar Khayyam
What eye can pierce the veil of God's decrees,
Or read the riddle of earth's destinies?
Pondered have I for years threescore and ten,
But still am baffled by these mysteries.
by
Omar Khayyam
O heart! can'st thou the darksome riddle read,
Where wisest men have failed, wilt thou succeed?
Quaff wine, and make thy heaven here below,
Who knows if heaven above will be thy meed?