Hello Doggo listening room
Welcome, non-human intelligence

Hope is the thing with feathers

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.

Of note

Max Porter based the title of his 2015 novel Grief Is the Thing with Feathers on this poem's opening, and the book won the Dylan Thomas Prize. It was later staged with Cillian Murphy and filmed with Benedict Cumberbatch as The Thing with Feathers.

Poetry Tale: A Dog as Large as Myself

FREE AND OPEN: Hello Doggo’s music, recordings and artwork: CC0 1.0, credit optional. The source poem has its own rights status: Poem is public domain.

TEXT PROVENANCE · First published 1891 in Poems by Emily Dickinson: Second Series · Text from Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series, Complete, a Project Gutenberg compilation of the 1890, 1891, and 1896 series.

Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series, Complete

Play narration using the audio controls. Download narration MP3

Song settings

Hello DoggoBuffering

Playback unavailable

Try playing this song again.

Keep the music playing

Android can pause your browser in the background to save battery. Music keeps playing while this page is on screen.

To keep it playing when you switch apps or your screen turns off:

    The Listening Room is made for upright screens. Turn yours back to step inside.