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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.

Life is queer with its twists and turns,
As every one of us sometimes learns,
And many a failure turns about
When he might have won had he stuck it out;
Don't give up though the pace seems slow --
You may succeed with another blow.

Success is failure turned inside out --
The silver tint of the clouds of doubt,
And you never can tell how close you are,
It may be near when it seems so far;
So stick to the fight when you're hardest hit --
It's when things seem worst that you must not quit!

Important Note:

Conflicting claims of authorship for this poem have generated more email than anything else on my web site.  It is generally my policy to acknowledge all claims of authorship but in this case, I have removed the recognition of someone who claimed he wrote it in 1994.  I am absolutely certain it is older than that.  I will keep the following claims online because I suspect one of them is genuine.

Jeff Lief reports that the poem was written by his father Ben Lief in 1929 when he was 19 years old, and says his mother still has the original typed copy of the poem.

Robert Ellis says the poem was written by his grandmother Betty Naimo Rich of Wakefield MA. He says she gave her only handwritten copy to a parish priest for his sermon (circa 1971) "and the rest is history." He adds, "I'm pretty proud of my nana and I would appreciate it if you would give her credit for it." He also says, "I personally helped her write one of the poem's lines."