Inside: 17 mystery poems to spark intrigue.
Poetry is obviously a form of creative writing and creative writing is always cooler and more… Creative when there is an air of mystery regarding the topic and the style.
Mystery poems are a classic style. Usually we cover more current and simple poems, but the best mystery poems go way back to some of the classical writers and how they can tell a phenomenal story without really telling you anything at all.
If you want to dive deep into some cool works of writing but don’t have the time commitment to give to a book right now, then get into some mystery poems! They’ll leave you on your toes like a short story and do it all while sounding so poetic and whimsical!
Read up on these 17 mystery poems that will spark your intrigue and you’ll just open a door to a new genre of poetry you hadn’t even considered yet.
Fall in love with poetry and mystery all over again! Do you love indie films like Dead Poets Society? Because you feel like you know so much and yet so little about each of the characters and where they come from? These mystery poems are just like that.
You’re going to love reading up on these poems and the hole that they’re going to take you down into when you’re done! You’ll only want to find more. Unless your brain gets so caught up on one mystery that you can’t even think about the next until you’ve fully processed it.
But hey, there’s no rush!
Take your time and continue to enjoy all of life’s little mysteries, including those that come from these poems.
Mystery Love Poems
Love.
Love is always a mystery to us– if you’re single like me you know what I’m talking about! Wondering why people do what they do and always analyzing your prospects like, “who are you, really?”
Some of these poets have put these feelings into words so wonderfully, I can’t help but feel seen through all of my love woes when I read poems like this.
It doesn’t tie the end up with a nice little bow, and it doesn’t leave a false happy ending. It just is.
As I lay here in the dark by your side,
You bring me great love, and I feel great pride.
For you, my darling, are my number one.
A tidal wave could approach and you’d still be my sun.
I’d protect you throughout,
No matter what.
Even at war,
I’d take a shot.
I’d take a bullet from the enemy’s gun,
Just to save you, my precious one.
You’re like a diamond in a million ways.
For a man like you, every girl prays,
Hard to find,
But close to my heart,
Mysteries aside,
Not just for the smart.
Deep in the ocean,
But standing on shore,
You’re determined you love me,
But I love you more.
From the first day i set my eyes on you;
little did I kown how important you will be to me
I thought you were just another person passing through
but now i know that you are a God – sent to rescue me
love , they say, is in the air.
but i say love is like a butterfly
if love is in the air , why is it so rare?
love can be disguised , it only grows in the nighty- like a firefly.
love they say is sweet
if love is sweet as they say, why does it upset ?
why does it present itself in such a manner so discrete?
Many are those who have been wounded and hurt .
But now i know that lovehas more to offer than just pleasure,
Even in the mist of pain , there is joy; for my love for you has no measure
By Cynthia Amoaka
All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.
By J.R.R. Tolkien
I can’t see you smile, but I can feel it.
You smiling, a simple smile, can make me smile too, without reason.
To me it’s mysterious, my curiosity overflows, how do you do this?
In my sleep, I see you. My mind realizes you before my spectral eyes.
I guess my mind just wants you this much, like it has a need to connect with yours.
How do you invade my mind? Maybe I let you, and you took the opportunity.
How we could have such similar interests, hobbies and tastes, I cannot fathom.
I found you, but how? Finding you should have statistically been closer to impossible than anything.
You’ve been living in the dark, your eyes can’t stand the light, it’s too bright.
So grab my hand and walk with me, and we’ll get past the obstacles together.
You’ll be able to see in the light, eventually. Until then, stay with me? I’ll protect you.
By Alexander M. Sirnes
Short Mystery Poems
Mark Twain said once that it takes a great writer to write a story with fewer words than with more.
So to begin and end a story as a short story, or even greater, as a short POEM is a phenomenal feat, and should be observed as a work of art. Especially if you leave the reader feeling like they’re left with mystery instead of plot holes, then you’ve done your job as a mystery writer well.
Enjoy these short mystery poems that will make you scratch your head with intrigue.
Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf,
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day
Nothing gold can stay.
By Robert Frost
6. Dreams
Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.
By Langston Hughs
7. Faith Is A Fine Intervention
“Faith” is a fine invention
For Gentlemen who see!
But Microscopes are prudent
In an Emergency!
By Emily Dickinson
8. How Sleep The Brave
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.
By Walter De La Mare
9. Remembrance
Your hands easy
weight, teasing the bees
hived in my hair, your smile at the
slope of my cheek. On the
occasion, you press
above me, glowing, spouting
readiness, mystery rapes
my reason
When you have withdrawn
your self and the magic, when
only the smell of your
love lingers between
my breasts, then, only
then, can I greedily consume
your presence.
By Maya Angelou
Popular Mystery Poems
This has always been a popular genre of poetry.
If you want to tell a whole story, write a book.
If you want to get someone intrigued just enough and leave it, write a mystery poem.
Many of the great writers dabbled in this. It’s a great way to tell a story that you have in the back of your mind.
Check out these popular mystery poems.
10. It’s A Long Way
It’s a long way the sea-winds blow
Over the sea-plains blue,—
But longer far has my heart to go
Before its dreams come true.
It’s work we must, and love we must,
And do the best we may,
And take the hope of dreams in trust
To keep us day by day.
It’s a long way the sea-winds blow—
But somewhere lies a shore—
Thus down the tide of Time shall flow
My dreams forevermore.
By William Stanley Braithwaite
11. Invisible
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.
By Emily Dickinson
12. To The Northern Lights
Ye gorgeous visions of the northern sky,
Mysterious and sublime!
Who lit your brilliant lights on high?
Stream ye alone in idle revelry
Above our cloudy clime,
Without an aim, or nature, more
Than mortal vision can explore?
Or have ye some high, unknown ministry?
Whence sprang ye into birth?
In distant realms unseen?
Or claim ye sisterhood with earth?
And will your strange, ethereal sheen
Fade with her fading green?
Man’s wisdom has not told—
Ye are a mystery,
Which time perhaps shall ne’er unfold;
Philosophy, whose eagle pinion bold
Has conquered space, and brought the planets near
To her inspecting eye,
Has sought in vain to fathom you,
Or tell the office that ye do.
Ye are of latter date—
Say—are ye for a sign,
Lit by the hand divine,
Whence earth should read her coming fate?
Signs shall be set in heaven,
And wonders meet the eye,
And naming prodigies be given
Within the upper sky.
Ye may be such—yet man would be
Most backward thus to interpret ye,
Who glides in blind security
Down Time s exhausting tide;
Puts far away the evil day,
Or dreams that he shall dwell for aye
In all his lust and pride.
Whate’er ye are, ye have an aim,
For He has lit your wondrous flame,
Who fashions not a flower in vain,
And howe’er fruitlessly we pry
Into your inward mystery,
One feature still is plain—
Like as in all His works, sublime or fair,
We trace the glories of the Godhead there!
By Isaac Gray Blanchard
Based on events I experienced.
A child of four suffers recurring dreams,
disturbing parents and siblings with screams.
When she awoke, always sore in one knee;
next to a birthmark, it throbbed painfully.
Night after night she feared going to bed.
What caused these nightmares that raged in her head?
Even when grown, the torment persisted,
so a therapist’s aid she enlisted.
“Hypnosis,” said he, “might offer some clues.
Why not try it? You’ve just bad dreams to lose.”
Once under, he guided her to a room —
here people’s lifetimes in books were entombed.
“Find one that is yours,” her counselor said.
Quickly she did, but before it was read,
she felt an ache, saw just a faint title.
The words, she thought, said “Alister Bridle.”
The hypnotic trance now suddenly broke;
puzzling questions “Mr. Bridle” evoked.
For many years she thought that was her name;
perhaps a past life had been filled with pain.
Who was this man? She simply had to know!
Seasons passed, summer suns made way for snow.
In Florida now, 1998,
she thought all the nightmares she had escaped.
But strange dreams always catch us by surprise —
when the lights grow dim, our minds fantasize.
Cloaked in velvet, she left her parents’ farm,
stealing away on a late autumn morn’.
To meet her love, she climbed on the carriage,
knowing her folks would forbid their marriage.
Warm-hued leaves carpeted the hillside road,
and her pulse beat fast; she’d soon join her beau.
She thought only of him; joy cast its smile,
but that’s when he called, “Alice, the bridle!”
The leather band broke and wrapped ‘round her knee.
To the ground she was pulled; her horse ran free.
She met death, but past-life dreams recycle,
and she’d never been “Alister Bridle.”
By Carolyn Devonshire
Suspenseful Poetry
Sometimes mystery can be chill, and sometimes it can be a total suspense story wondering, “who did it?!”
If you’re into something a little more spooky than mysterious, here are some great poetry options for you!
These are fun and suspenseful without touching the horror genre.
14. I felt a Funeral, in my Brain
I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,
And Mourners to and fro
Kept treading – treading – till it seemed
That Sense was breaking through –
And when they all were seated,
A Service, like a Drum –
Kept beating – beating – till I thought
My mind was going numb –
And then I heard them lift a Box
And creak across my Soul
With those same Boots of Lead, again,
Then Space – began to toll,
As all the Heavens were a Bell,
And Being, but an Ear,
And I, and Silence, some strange Race,
Wrecked, solitary, here –
And then a Plank in Reason, broke,
And I dropped down, and down –
And hit a World, at every plunge,
And Finished knowing – then –
By Emily Dickinson
15. Outcast
For the dim regions whence my fathers came
My spirit, bondaged by the body, longs.
Words felt, but never heard, my lips would frame;
My soul would sing forgotten jungle songs.
I would go back to darkness and to peace,
But the great western world holds me in fee,
And I may never hope for full release
While to its alien gods I bend my knee.
Something in me is lost, forever lost,
Some vital thing has gone out of my heart,
And I must walk the way of life a ghost
Among the sons of earth, a thing apart;
For I was born, far from my native clime,
Under the white man’s menace, out of time.
By Claude Mckay
“I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)
The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)
God topples from the sky, hell’s fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan’s men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
I fancied you’d return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)
I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)”
By Sylvia Plath
17. Dead Man’s Hate
They hanged John Farrel in the dawn amid the marketplace;
At dusk came Adam Brand to him and spat upon his face.
“Ho neighbors all,” spake Adam Brand, “see ye John Farrel’s fate!
“Tis proven here a hempen noose is stronger than man’s hate!
For heard ye not John Farrel’s vow to be avenged upon me
Come life or death? See how he hangs high on the gallows tree!”
Yet never a word the people spoke, in fear and wild surprise-
For the grisly corpse raised up its head and stared with sightless eyes,
And with strange motions, slow and stiff, pointed at Adam Brand
And clambered down the gibbet tree, the noose within its hand.
With gaping mouth stood Adam Brand like a statue carved of stone,
Till the dead man laid a clammy hand hard on his shoulder bone.
Then Adam shrieked like a soul in hell; the red blood left his face
And he reeled away in a drunken run through the screaming market place;
And close behind, the dead man came with a face like a mummy’s mask,
And the dead joints cracked and the stiff legs creaked with their unwonted task.
Men fled before the flying twain or shrank with bated breath,
And they saw on the face of Adam Brand the seal set there by death.
He reeled on buckling legs that failed, yet on and on he fled;
So through the shuddering market-place, the dying fled the dead.
At the riverside fell Adam Brand with a scream that rent the skies;
Across him fell John Farrel’s corpse, nor ever the twain did rise.
There was no wound on Adam Brand but his brow was cold and damp,
For the fear of death had blown out his life as a witch blows out a lamp.
His lips were writhed in a horrid grin like a fiend’s on Satan’s coals,
And the men that looked on his face that day, his stare still haunts their souls.
Such was the fate of Adam Brand, a strange, unearthly fate;
For stronger than death or hempen noose are the fires of a dead man’s hate.
By Robert Ervin Howard
Poetry is meant to tell a story without telling you the full story. Paint a picture without a video. A snapshot of a moment, feeling, or expression of time where you don’t necessarily need or get any more context.
These can leave your mind reeling for days and being stuck in the mystery world of this poem that you just uncovered. This is how I found some of my favorite writers– I found their poems so full of mystery and I began to eat up all of their content available!
The way that poets can write something so simple, and create such a vivid mental picture of something so specific to the point where I feel like I don’t even know much else about them except this one tiny detail of their life? Phenomenal. I love that.
If these take you down into a pit of mystery and you need to come back up, try some Disney poems!
