Lyric Poem · Love
Encouraged
Because you love me I have much achieved,
Had you despised me then I must have failed,
But since I knew you trusted and believed,
I could not disappoint you and so prevailed.
Full-text availability follows the United States display decision recorded below; status can differ elsewhere.
“Encouraged” by Paul Laurence Dunbar — quilloak.com/poems/encouraged
Quick facts
- Poem
- Encouraged
- Poet
- Paul Laurence Dunbar
- Length
- 4 lines
- Form
- Lyric Poem, Short Poems
- Themes
- Love, Short
Craft notes
How this poem works
Measured from the text on this page, not copied from a summary. Counts are approximate: syllables and rhymes come from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, which models General American English, so dialect, older pronunciation, and performance can all change what you hear.
- Shape
- 4 lines · one 4-line stanza
- Line length
- Mostly 10-syllable lines (pentameter length).
Want the rules this form is measured against? Read what makes a lyric poem, or run your own draft through the form checker to see the same measurements on your lines. How we measure · Report a mistake
Text, source & rights
A traceable edition
Full-text display is based on the committed source record and a United States term-expiry review.
- Author record
- Paul Laurence Dunbar1872–1906
- Source record
- PoetryDBEncouraged by paul-laurence-dunbar, PoetryDB transcription
- Display decision
- Full text · United States · reviewed 2026-07-18
- Publication record
- Not recorded in the imported source
- Text fingerprint
- SHA-256 141e8eed843a80c6…
- Editorial handling
- Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.
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