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Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

"Hope" is the thing with feathers (254)


              1"Hope" is the thing with feathers
              2That perches in the soul
              3And sings the tune without the words
              4And never stops at all,

              5And sweetest in the gale is heard;
              6And sore must be the storm
              7That could abash the little bird
              8That kept so many warm.

              9I've heard it in the chillest land
            10And on the strangest sea,
            11Yet never, in extremity,
            12It asked a crumb of me.

Notes

1] "Hope": the 1891 edition lacks the quotation marks.


Online text copyright © 2009, Ian Lancashire (the Department of English) and the University of Toronto.
Published by the Web Development Group, Information Technology Services, University of Toronto Libraries.

Original text: The Manuscript Books of Emily Dickinson, edited by R. W. Franklin in volumes (Cambridge, Mass., and London: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1981; PS 1541 A1 1981 ROBA): I, 264 (fascicle 13).
First publication date: 1891
RPO poem editor: Ian Lancashire
RP edition: RPO 1997.
Recent editing: 2:2002/4/3

Composition date: 1861
Rhyme: abcb (irregular)


Other poems by Emily Dickinson