Hope

This poem, by Emily Dickinson, has been running in my head today. Well, to be more accurate, the first line drove me crazy for a while, as I couldn't remember what came next. Then I remembered all but one word--"stops"--of the first stanza. That's all I ever knew, anyway. So I looked it up. . .to see what "stops" was. (I kept thinking "hums," and that just doesn't make sense.) As a general rule, I'm not a huge Dickinson fan. I don't dislike her; she's just not usually my favorite. But this poem is an exception, and I think it typifies Christian life very well. . .and all life, in various seasons. It's a hopeful sentiment, I think, and generally buoys up my own hope. What a coincidence.

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.