Studying can sometimes feel overwhelming, and we all need a little extra encouragement to keep going.
As someone who loves poetry, I’ve found that the right words can lift my spirits and remind me why it’s worth pushing through challenges.
Here are 10 heartening motivational poems that speak directly to students—poems that inspire resilience, hope, and determination.
Let’s get straight to it!
My favorite motivational poem for students
#1 “Results And Roses” by Edgar A. Guest
The man who wants a garden fair,
Or small or very big,
With flowers growing here and there,
Must bend his back and dig.
The things are mighty few on earth
That wishes can attain.
Whate’er we want of any worth
We’ve got to work to gain.
It matters not what goal you seek
Its secret here reposes:
You’ve got to dig from week to week
To get Results or Roses.
“Results And Roses” by Edgar A. Guest stands out to me because it speaks the truth every student needs to hear—success doesn’t come without effort.
This poem grabs my attention with its simple but powerful message: you can’t expect beautiful results without digging deep and working hard.
It reminds me that steady, consistent effort is the key to achieving any goal, no matter how big or small.
9 more motivational poems for students
#2 “Success And Failure” by Edgar A. Guest
I do not think all failure’s undeserved,
And all success is merely someone’s luck;
Some men are down because they were unnerved,
And some are up because they kept their pluck.
Some men are down because they chose to shirk;
Some men are high because they did their work.
I do not think that all the poor are good,
That riches are the uniform of shame;
The beggar might have conquered if he would,
And that he begs, the world is not to blame.
Misfortune is not all that comes to mar;
Most men, themselves, have shaped the things they are.
#3 “Sowing And Reaping” by Hager
In spring we plough the field and till the soil ,
And sow the tiny seeds on either hand,
And soon, repaying, as it were, our toil,
The blades of green begin to clothe the land.
Then carefully we work, we watch, we wait,
While nourished by the summer sun and rain,
Till ‘ neath the autumn skies with hearts elate,
We gather in at last the ripened grain.
And so, if we, in Life’s fair autumn days,
Would garner in the fruit of loving deeds,
Of Christian word and work, in all our ways,
We must in early springtime sow the seeds.
The loving thoughts we shelter in the heart,
Upspringing there, the blades of good shall grow,
Which kept by watchful care from weeds apart,
The evil thoughts which we too often sow,
Shall flourish, grow in strength, and soon increase,
And we in Life’s last days the fruit shall see,
Reward of life well spent, -eternal peace, –
For ” as our sowing, shall our reaping be.”
#4 “Patience” by Emma Lazarus
The passion of despair is quelled at last;
The cruel sense of undeserved wrong,
The wild self-pity, these are also past;
She knows not what may come, but she is strong;
She feels she hath not aught to lose nor gain,
Her patience is the essence of all pain.
As one who sits beside a lapsing stream,
She sees the flow of changeless day by day,
Too sick and tired to think, too sad to dream,
Nor cares how soon the waters slip away,
Nor where they lead; at the wise God’s decree,
She will depart or bide indifferently.
There is deeper pathos in the mild
And settled sorrow of the quiet eyes,
Than in the tumults of the anguish wild,
That made her curse all things beneath the skies;
No question, no reproaches, no complaint,
Hers is the holy calm of some meek saint.
#5 “Will” by Alfred Lord Tennyson
I.
O well for him whose will is strong!
He suffers, but he will not suffer long;
He suffers, but he cannot suffer wrong:
For him nor moves the loud world’s random mock,
Nor all Calamity’s hugest waves confound,
Who seems a promontory of rock,
That, compass’d round with turbulent sound,
In middle ocean meets the surging shock,
Tempest-buffeted, citadel-crown’d.
II.
But ill for him who, bettering not with time,
Corrupts the strength of heaven-descended Will,
And ever weaker grows thro’ acted crime,
Or seeming-genial venial fault,
Recurring and suggesting still!
He seems as one whose footsteps halt,
Toiling in immeasurable sand,
And o’er a weary sultry land,
Far beneath a blazing vault,
Sown in a wrinkle of the monstrous hill,
The city sparkles like a grain of salt.
#6 “He Had His Dream” by Paul Laurence Dunbar
He had his dream, and all through life,
Worked up to it through toil and strife.
Afloat fore’er before his eyes,
It colored for him all his skies:
The storm-cloud dark
Above his bark,
The calm and listless vault of blue
Took on its hopeful hue,
It tinctured every passing beam—
He had his dream.
He labored hard and failed at last,
His sails too weak to bear the blast,
The raging tempests tore away
And sent his beating bark astray.
But what cared he
For wind or sea!
He said, “The tempest will be short,
My bark will come to port.”
He saw through every cloud a gleam—
He had his dream.
#7 “The Gift Of Perseverance” by John Henry Newman
Once, as I brooded o’er my guilty state,
A fever seized me, duties to devise,
To buy me interest in my Saviour’s eyes;
Not that His love I would extenuate,
But scourge and penance, masterful self-hate,
Or gift of cost, served by an artifice
To quell my restless thoughts and envious sighs
And doubts, which fain heaven’s peace would antedate.
Thus as I tossed, He said:-‘E’en holiest deeds
Shroud not the soul from God, nor soothe its needs;
Deny thee thine own fears, and wait the end!’
Stern lesson! Let me con it day by day,
And learn to kneel before the Omniscient Ray,
Nor shrink, when Truth’s avenging shafts descend!
#8 “Work, Neighbor, Work!” by Louisa May Alcott
“Work, neighbor, work!
Do not stop to play;
Wander far and wide,
Gather all you may.
We are never like
Idle butterflies,
But like the busy bees,
Industrious and wise.”
#9 “The Busy Bee” by Isaac Watts
How doth the little busy bee
Improve each shining hour,
And gather honey all the day
From every opening flower!
How skilfully she builds her cell!
How neat she spreads the wax!
And labors hard to store it well
With the sweet food she makes.
In works of labor or of skill
I would be busy too;
For Satan finds some mischief still
For idle hands to do.
In books, or work, or healthful play,
Let my first years be passed,
That I may give for every day
Some good account at last.
#10 “Earnestness” by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
The hurry of the times affects us so
In this swift rushing hour, we crowd and press,
And thrust each other backward, as we go,
And do not pause to lay sufficient stress
Upon that good, strong, true word, Earnestness.
In our impetuous haste, could we but know
Its full, deep meaning, its vast import, oh,
Then might we grasp the secret of success!
In that receding age when men were great,
The bone, and sinew of their purpose lay
In this one word. God likes an earnest soul—
Too earnest to be eager. Soon or late
It leaves the spent horde breathless by the way,
And stands serene, triumphant, at the goal.