‘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 chilliest land -
And on the strangest seas -
Yet, never, in Extremity,
It asked a crumb - of Me.
--Emily Dickinson
The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, Edited by Thomas H.
Johnson, Boston: Little Brown and Co., 1960, p. 116
