"Hope" is the thing with feathers—

"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.

                                                            F314 (1862)  254

Common Yellow Throat
William Wander

This is one of the most well-known poems of Emily Dickinson. The first line, with its substitution of “thing with feathers” for “bird” gives the reader an immediate discovery moment. And it seems right, too. Hope is rather like a bird “perch[ing] in the soul” and, at least for some people, who never stops. Dickinson was apparently one of those lucky souls whose hope never died—or at least it hadn’t died by 1862.  The essence of hope, as Dickinson portrays it, is that it “never stops” singing its tune, no matter how difficult the circumstances—and yet it never asks for even “a crumb” to keep going.

            This is, as are many of Dickinson’s poems, written in standard hymn form: four-line stanzas with iambic tetrameter alternating with iambic trimeter. The rhyme scheme is loosely ABAB, but Dickinson plays with it a little. The “er” sound in “feathers” does go well with the same sound in “words,” although it isn’t such a close slant rhyme as “soul” with “all” or “storm” with “warm.” The “er” sound is carried through the poem, however, adding aural unity: perches, feathers, words, never, heard, Bird, heard, never—and, related, storm and warm.