Emily Dickinson, 254

It's been a few months since National Poetry Month (see posts) and this blog is in need of a bit of verse. Yesterday, while watching reruns of Criminal Minds,¹ I was reminded of this gem.

Emily Dickinson, Untitled Poem 254:

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.

Read more Dickinson:
The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, edited by Thomas H. Johnson.

1. One of the quotations featured in Mosley Lane (season 5) was the first stanza of this poem.