"Hope" is the thing with feathers
"'Hope' is the thing with feathers" is a lyric poem in ballad meter by American poet Emily Dickinson.
"Hope" is the thing with feathers — That perches in the soul — And sings the tune without the 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.
[1] Fascicle 13's distinctive markers include a woven style of stationery, with paper that is cream in appearance with a blue rule line on it.
According to literary critic Helen Vendler, the poem's opening foot is "reversed", adding more color and emphasis on the word "Hope".
In Victoria N. Morgan's Emily Dickinson and Hymnal Culture: Tradition and Experience, she writes that Dickinson's poetry may have been influenced by 18th-century hymn culture, such as Isaac Watts and hymnal writers Phoebe Hinsdale Brown and Eliza Lee Follen.
[10] Vendler writes that Dickinson enjoys "the stimulus of teasing riddles", as seen when she plays with the idea of hope as a bird.
[5] Dickinson alludes to hope as something that does not disappear when the "Gale" and "storm" get worse and whose song persists despite the intensity of whatever is attempting to unseat it.
Scholar Ena Jung writes that Dickinson's dashes are among the most "widely contested diacriticals" in contemporary literary discussions.
[12] In his Poetry Handbook, John Lennard writes that Dickinson's poems rely heavily on her use of dashes, capitalization, and line and stanza breaks.
[3] Dickinson's poems are considered mysterious and enigmatic and typically have a volta, or turn in topic, at the end, as in "Because I could not stop for Death."
[16] Other musical settings are by Robert Sieving, Emma Lou Diemer, Paul Kelly, and Christopher Tin.
The alternative country band Trailer Bride's final album is Hope Is a Thing with Feathers, a variant of the poem's first line.
