The "Don't Quit!" Poem & Positive Grammar

THE "DON'T QUIT" POEM & POSITIVE GRAMMAR
By Hal Womack 3-dan
For some years I have been campaigning for systematically replacing negative grammar with positive. The former means simply any use of the basic negative terms "no, not, never" or of their close variations or composite contractions. The rationale for this proposed reform I will leave for another occasion. Yesterday (Friday 18 May) on the stage at the Dolphin Club* in San Francisco de Alta California at a moving & well-organized memorial service for my friend Peter Butler (b. 1931), an outstanding athlete and gentleman, his six charming grandchildren read their family's traditional poem "Don't Quit", an exhortation in verse apparently about a century old by an anonymous author. * http://www.dolphinclub.org/
Having in the past already made bold publicly to improve, at least according to my taste, certain lyrics even of the great Percy Bysshe Shelley, I promptly undertook to fashion a grammatically positive "pogra" for short version of the work at hand, the original being given afterwards for purposes of comparison:

Quit? Spit!
(Pogra var. by Hal Womack 3-dan, 19 May 2007)
When things go wrong, as they sometimes will,
When the road you're trudging seems all up hill,
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 quit? You spit!
Life is queer with its twists and turns,
As everyone of us sometimes learns,
And many a failure turns about
When he might have won had he stuck it out;
Why give up, though the pace seems slow,
When you might succeed with another blow?
Often the goal is nearer than
It seems to faint and faltering man.
Sad the struggler who has given up
When he might have captured the victor's cup
But learned too late, when night slipped down,
How close he had come to the golden crown!
Success is failure turned inside out,
The silver tint of the clouds of doubt.
Can you ever tell how close you are?
Joy may be near tho' seeming yet afar;
So stick to the fight when you're hardest hit;
When things seem worst, must you quit or show grit?

{The original version}
"Don't Quit!"
by anonymous
When things go wrong, as they sometimes will,
When the road you're trudging seems all up hill,
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 everyone 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 might succeed with another blow.
Often the goal is nearer than
It seems to a faint and faltering man,
Often the struggler has given up
When he might have captured the victor's cup.
And he learned too late, when the night slipped down, How close he was to the golden crown.
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 afar;
So stick to the fight when you're hardest hit;
It's when things seem worst that you mustn't quit.