‘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.
‘Hope is the thing with feathers’ is a poem by Emily Dickinson that is perceived to have been published in 1861. In this poem Emily uses hope as an abstract entity to tightly hold the human spirits, maneuvering their trust and desires with utter relentlessness. For Emily, hope can be signified as a bird that lives as an entity as humans.
There is no doubt that Emily Dickinson is an expert employer of metaphors because she uses a small bird to convey the message. This indicates that hope burns in cold winds, harsh storms, and unknown seas for this particular matter, but it never demands anything in return. Our hope persists continuously within us, and therefore, it keeps us alive.
In the first stanza, Emily feels that hope might be deemed a bird of feathers that merrily sings in its tune. There is no specific language of hope, but it is undoubtedly present in our souls. Therefore, Emily Dickinson tries to make us understand that hope is an eternal spring and the vital constituent of humans. The beauty of hope is that it enables us to conquer unchartered territories.
In the second stanza, Emily tries to elucidate the expensive power that hope wields over human beings. She elaborates its strength that it becomes sweeter and merrier as the storm starts getting relentless and mightier. She tries to emphasize that no storm can sway hope, and it is an adamant attitude.
According to Emily, it requires quite a deadly storm of astronomical proportions to flatten this bird of hope. She says it because she is quite aware that hope has been able to keep the ship sailing for the majority of people around the world.
In the end, Emily Dickinson begins to conclude her poem by stressing to the people that hope can retain its clarity and tensile strength even in the harshest of situations. The great thing is that it anything in return for its valiant services. Hope is inherently a powerful feeling and doesn’t require any polishing, as it keeps on steering our ship from one storm to another with efficacy.
The symbolic aspect of this poem is considered an old practice used by the famous poets, as the small bird represents hope in this excellent piece of poetry. When we study abstract concepts like love, death, and hope, they usually are represented by some object from nature, and in this case, it is a bird.
