Sunday, April 5, 2015

________________________ A PRAYER AT EASTER ______________________

Cartoon by Michael Leunig

HOPE IS THE THING WITH FEATHERS
By 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.

2 comments:

Kate said...

Lovely Pome. The thing with feathers is also The Duck.

Alden Smith said...

Emily Dickinsons poetry is sometimes obscure but this poem is pretty straight forward. I like the last two lines
"Yet never in Extremity,
It asked a crumb from me"

For me it places Hope alongside Faith and Charity (Love) as being ideas beyond our power to manipulate or alter; we can actively and emotionally lack, or have in abundance all three, but we cannot alter their definitions, their call, or their imperatives.