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This site exists for one purpose only: to help dispel the ugly and absolutely untrue myth that poetry is boring. Granted, a lot of poetry is boring, but you won't find it here. At Your Daily Poem, you'll find poetry that is touching, funny, provocative, inspiring, uplifting, and surprising. It may punch you in the gut, it may bring tears to your eyes, it may make you laugh out loud, but it most assuredly will not bore you!

Poetry on YDP—by poets living and long dead, famous to completely unknown--is specially selected for accessibility and appeal. Thanks so much for visiting—and remember: a poem a day keeps the doldrums away!


 



Laugh a Little
by
Edmund Vance Cooke

Here's a motto, just your fit--
Laugh a little bit.
When you think you're trouble hit,
Laugh a little bit.
Look misfortune in the face.
Brave the beldam's rude grimace;
Ten to one 'twill yield its place,
If you have the wit and grit
Just to laugh a little bit.

Keep your face with sunshine lit,
Laugh a little bit.
All the shadows off will flit,
If you have the grit and wit
Just to laugh a little bit.

Cherish this as sacred writ--
Laugh a little bit.
Keep it with you, sample it,
Laugh a little bit.
Little ills will sure betide you,
Fortune may not sit beside you,
Men may mock and fame deride you,
But you'll mind them not a whit
If you laugh a little bit.


This poem is in the public domain.

Edmund Vance Cooke (1866 - 1932), often referred to as "the poet laureate of childhood," was born in 1866, in Ontario, Canada. He began working at the White Sewing Machine Co. factory as a teenager and stayed there for 14 years, until he became a self-employed poet and lecturer in 1893. His first book of poems, A Patch of Pansies, came out the next year,. Edmund is a fine and highly entertaining poet whom many critics consider underrated; he published sixteen collections of poetry during the course of his career, plus many children's books.

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Post New Comment:
Lori Levy:
My mother always said, "It's important to laugh and to laugh at yourself."
Posted 01/04/2026 12:44 PM
EstherJ:
I will have to remember this one. There are times it helps not to take things too seriously.
Posted 01/04/2026 09:16 AM
Darrell Arnold:
I live by this -- laugh a little bit. And in the huge marketplace where I work as a cashier, I do my best to put a grin on the faces of my customers. Many of them like it enough that they will willingly stand in line at my counter and wait for their turn rather than march straight through the open counter next to us. It's rewarding for all of us.
Posted 01/04/2026 09:04 AM
dotief@comcast.net:
I have maintained that staying in teaching (or any line of work really), requires one to laugh a lot!
Posted 01/04/2011 08:24 AM
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