Have you ever felt a tug of curiosity about the secrets life holds?
The world is filled with mysteries that intrigue and inspire us, and poetry is the perfect lens through which to explore them.
Here are 10 captivating poems that delve into the complexities of mystery, each revealing unique insights and provoking thoughtful reflection.
Let’s dive in!
My favorite poem about mysteries
#1 “The Mystery Of Pain” by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson
Pain has an element of blank;
It cannot recollect
When it began, or if there were
A day when it was not.
It has no future but itself,
Its infinite realms contain
Its past, enlightened to perceive
New periods of pain.
I really connect with this poem because it captures the confusing nature of pain, making me think about how it feels like it exists beyond time.
The idea that pain has no clear beginning or end resonates with so many of my experiences, reminding me of those moments when I struggle to pinpoint why I hurt.
9 more poems about mysteries
#2 “Mystery” by Walter Murdoch
Why does this sudden passion smite me?
I stretch my hands, all blind to see:
I need the lamp of the world to light me,
Lead me and set me free.
Something a moment seemed to stoop from
The night with cool, cool breath on my face:
Or did the hair of the twilight droop from
Its silent wandering ways?
About me in the thick wood netted
The wizard glow looks human-wise;
And over the tree-tops barred and fretted
Ponders with strange old eyes.
The tremulous lips of air blow by me
And hymn their time-old melody:
Its secret strain comes nigh and nigh me:
“Ah, brother, come with me;
“For here the ancient mother lingers
To dip her hands in the diamond dew,
And lave thine ache with cloud-cool fingers
Till sorrow die from you.”
#3 “The Mystery” by Lilian Whiting
You gave me roses, love, last night,
When the sea was blue and the skies were bright;
And the earth was aglow with a golden light
When you gave me roses, love, last night.
Lilies I lay by your side to-day,
And your face—it is colder and whiter than they;
And I linger and listen and wonder and pray,
As I bring you lilies to-day.
#4 “Life’s Mystery” by Alfred Castner King
I live, I move, I know not how, nor why,
Float as a transient bubble on the air,
As fades the eventide I, too, must die;
I came, I know not whence; I journey, where?
#5 “The Mystery” by Ralph Hodgson
He came and took me by the hand
Up to a red rose tree,
He kept His meaning to Himself
But gave a rose to me.
I did not pray Him to lay bare
The mystery to me;
Enough the rose was Heaven to smell,
And His own face to see.
#6 “Invisible” by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson
From us she wandered now a year,
Her tarrying unknown;
If wilderness prevent her feet,
Or that ethereal zone
No eye hath seen and lived,
We ignorant must be.
We only know what time of year
We took the mystery.
#7 “Human Life’s Mystery” by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
We sow the glebe, we reap the corn,
We build the house where we may rest,
And then, at moments, suddenly,
We look up to the great wide sky,
Inquiring wherefore we were born…
For earnest or for jest?
The senses folding thick and dark
About the stifled soul within,
We guess diviner things beyond,
And yearn to them with yearning fond;
We strike out blindly to a mark
Believed in, but not seen.
We vibrate to the pant and thrill
Wherewith Eternity has curled
In serpent-twine about God’s seat;
While, freshening upward to His feet,
In gradual growth His full-leaved will
Expands from world to world.
And, in the tumult and excess
Of act and passion under sun,
We sometimes hear—oh, soft and far,
As silver star did touch with star,
The kiss of Peace and Righteousness
Through all things that are done.
God keeps His holy mysteries
Just on the outside of man’s dream;
In diapason slow, we think
To hear their pinions rise and sink,
While they float pure beneath His eyes,
Like swans adown a stream.
Abstractions, are they, from the forms
Of His great beauty?—exaltations
From His great glory?—strong previsions
Of what we shall be?—intuitions
Of what we are—in calms and storms,
Beyond our peace and passions?
Things nameless! which, in passing so,
Do stroke us with a subtle grace.
We say, ‘Who passes?’—they are dumb.
We cannot see them go or come:
Their touches fall soft, cold, as snow
Upon a blind man’s face.
Yet, touching so, they draw above
Our common thoughts to Heaven’s unknown,
Our daily joy and pain advance
To a divine significance,
Our human love—O mortal love,
That light is not its own!
And sometimes horror chills our blood
To be so near such mystic Things,
And we wrap round us for defence
Our purple manners, moods of sense—
As angels from the face of God
Stand hidden in their wings.
And sometimes through life’s heavy swound
We grope for them!—with strangled breath
We stretch our hands abroad and try
To reach them in our agony,—
And widen, so, the broad life-wound
Which soon is large enough for death.
#8 “The Mystic Rose” by Elsa Barker
I’ woman, am that wonder-breathing rose
That blossoms in the garden of the King.
In all the world there is no lovelier thing,
And the learned stars no secret can disclose
Deeper than mine—that almost no one knows.
The perfume of my petals in the spring
Is inspiration to all bards that sing
Of love, the spirit’s lyric unrepose.
Under my veil is hid the mystery
Of unaccomplished aeons, and my breath
The Master-Lover’s life replenisheth.
The mortal garment that is worn by me
The loom of Time renews continually;
And when I die—the universe knows death.
#9 “The Poet’s Secret” by Elizabeth Stoddard
The poet’s secret I must know,
If that will calm my restless mind.
I hail the seasons as they go,
I woo the sunshine, brave the wind.
I scan the lily and the rose,
I nod to every nodding tree,
I follow every stream that flows,
And wait beside the steadfast sea.
I question melancholy eyes,
I touch the lips of women fair:
Their lips and eyes may make me wise,
But what I seek for is not there.
In vain I watch the day and night,
In vain the world through space may roll;
I never see the mystic light
Which fills the poet’s happy soul.
Through life I hear the rhythmic flow
Whose meaning into song must turn;
Revealing all he longs to know,
The secret each alone must learn.
#10 “The Open Door” by Alfred Noyes
O Mystery of life,
That, after all our strife,
Defeats, mistakes,
Just as, at last, we see
The road to victory,
The tired heart breaks.
Just as the long years give
Knowledge of how to live,
Life’s end draws near;
As if, that gift being ours,
God needed our new powers
In worlds elsewhere.
There, if the soul whose wings
Were won in suffering, springs
To life anew,
Justice would have some room
For hope beyond the tomb,
And mercy, too.
And since, without this dream
No light, no faintest gleam
Answers our ‘why’;
But earth and all its race
Must pass and leave no trace
On that blind sky;
Shall reason close that door
On all we struggled for,
Seal the soul’s doom;
Make of this universe
One wild answering curse,
One lampless tomb?
Mine be the dream, the creed
That leaves for God, indeed,
For God, and man,
One open door whereby
To prove His world no lie
And crown His plan.