Poems by Wisława Szymborska which display examples of the poet's hopeful nature include "Love at First Sight," "Utopia," and "A Funeral."

The first of these poems has a title which sounds optimistic, even idealistic. The poet's approach, however, turns out to be more pragmatic than this suggests. Perhaps, Szymborska speculates, the lovers have encountered one another before but do not remember. Perhaps we are all the playthings of fate. Fate, in this case, seems fundamentally benign, and the poem ends on a note of open-ended hope:

But every beginning
is only a continuation
and the book of fate is
always open in the middle.

"Utopia" is similarly hopeful in an unexpected way. The perfect island turns out to be uninhabited, and the poem is a celebration of the "unfathomable life" of which utopia is a rejection. Finally, "A Funeral" might lead the reader to expect grief and gloom. However, the snatches of dialogue which make up the poem emphasize that life goes on for all the people attending the funeral and is worth living regardless of the inevitable end.