Best Positive, Inspirational Poems

With doubt and dismay you are smitten
You think there's no chance for you, son?
Why, the best books haven't been written
The best race hasn't been run,
The best score hasn't been made yet,
The best song hasn't been sung,
The best tune hasn't been played yet,
Cheer up, for the world is young!

If you can't be a pine
on the top of the hill,
Be a scrub in the valley — but be
The best little scrub
by the side of the rill;
Be a bush if you can't be a tree.
If you can't be a bush be
a bit of the grass,
And some highway happier make;

When things go wrong,
as they sometimes will,
when the road you're trudging
seems all uphill,
when the funds are low
and the debts are high,
and you want to smile
but you have to sigh,
when care is pressing you down a bit -
rest if you must, but don't you quit.

When we feel we have
nothing left to give
And we are sure
that the "song has ended"--
When our day seems over
and the shadows fall
And the darkness
of night has descended,
Where can we go to find the strength
To valiantly keep on trying,

Figure it out for yourself, my lad,
You've all that the greatest of men
have had,
Two arms, two hands, two legs, two eyes,
And a brain to use if you would be wise.
With this equipment they all began,
So start for the top and say "I can."

Somebody said that it couldn’t be done
But he with a chuckle replied
That “maybe it couldn’t,”
but he would be one
Who wouldn’t say so till he’d tried.
So he buckled right in
with the trace of a grin
On his face. If he worried he hid it.
He started to sing
as he tackled the thing
That couldn’t be done, and he did it!

In spite of war, in spite of death,
In spite of all man’s sufferings,
Something within me laughs and sings
And I must praise with all my breath.
In spite of war, in spite of hate
Lilacs are blooming at my gate,
Tulips are tripping down the path
In spite of war, in spite of wrath.

I have to live with myself, and so
I want to be fit for myself to know.
I want to be able as days go by,
Always to look myself straight in the eye;
I don't want to stand with the setting sun
And hate myself for the things I've done.
I don't want to keep on a closet shelf
A lot of secrets about myself

I have studied many times
The marble which was chiseled for me—
A boat with a furled sail
at rest in a harbor.
In truth it pictures not my destination
But my life.
For love was offered me and
I shrank from its disillusionment;
Sorrow knocked at my door,
but I was afraid;

Learn to do everything lightly.
Yes, feel lightly even though
you’re feeling deeply.
Just lightly let things happen
and lightly cope with them.
I was so preposterously serious
in those days,
such a humorless little prig.
Lightly, lightly – it’s the best advice
ever given me.

It is not the critic who counts,
Not the man who points out
How the strong man stumbles,
Or where the doer of deeds
Could have done them better.
The credit belongs
To the man in the arena,
Whose face is marred
By dust, sweat, and blood;

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.
Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
’Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.
Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

If you can keep your head
when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself
when all men doubt you,
But make allowance
for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired
by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,