SUNDAY REVIEW / REMARKABLE POEM FOR ANY DAY AND AGE

 

American poet Emily Dickinson as a teen.

Editor’s note: “'Hope' Is the Thing With Feathers” is believed to have been written in 1861. It was initially published posthumously in the second collection of Dickinson's work, Poems by Emily Dickinson, second series, in 1891. 

 HOPE IS THE THING WITH FEATHERS

POEM / By Emily Dickinson 

 Hope is the thing with feathers 

That perches in the soul, 

And sings the tune without words, 

And never stops at all. 

...

And sweetest in the gale is heard; 

And sore must be the storm 

That could abash the little bird 

That kept so many warm. 

...

 I’ve heard it in the chillest land, 

And on the strangest sea; 

 Yet, never, in extremity, 

It asked a crumb of me.