Summary
In the first stanza of the poem, "hope" is introduced as a "thing with feathers." In other words, the speaker is envisioning it as a bird. The speaker then depicts it as perching and singing a wordless melody without pause or interruption. In the next stanza, the bird is put through tribulations in the form of a "gale"-force wind. But it endures this heavy weather and continues to sing. The speaker says that it is this unflappable intensity that has allowed the bird to bring comfort to so many suffering individuals.
Analysis
This poem is about the nature of perseverance. By giving hope a physical embodiment, the speaker is able to explore the extent to which it is able to provide comfort in challenging circumstances. The durability of this idea is explored as the poem progresses and presents increasingly dangerous scenes. The "bird" of hope is shown as traveling far and wide, surviving bitter cold and brutal winds.
From the first line, the speaker has made the abstract idea of hope into a literal animal. This initial description ("'Hope' is a thing with feathers -") takes the idea of hope and encloses it in the vivid image of a feathered creature. The subsequent lines follow a similar pattern, not quite saying the word "bird" but implying it with attributes. It both "perches" and "sings the tune without the words." But this creature still exists at a certain level of abstraction. It is perched "in the soul" and its tune "never stops - at all." This "thing with feathers" is a bird that dwells inside the speaker and others and its "tune" is a melody of endurance. It is a semi-fantastical image that lends itself well to the poem's main idea: the exploration of hope's incredible strength. The dramatic last line of this stanza ("never stops - at all -") also sets up the reader's expectations of what is to come. By promising that this bird's song will not be quieted, Dickinson is then allowing the reader to imagine what situations might test this bold claim. If, as it is commonly said, hope "springs eternal" then the reader is naturally led to wonder where it might encounter a limitation.
Dickinson answers this question with one of her most commonly used settings: nature. She places the bird's song in a new context, that of a terrible windstorm ("And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -") with dashes marking this new turbulence. The word "sweetest" also implies that adversity only makes the intensity of hope stronger. In the following lines, the bird is shown as surviving this violent weather, never stopping, even as it struggles: "And sore must be the storm - / That could abash the little Bird." The final line of the second stanza ("That kept so many warm") refers back to the bird, taking note of the number of people it has supported and comforted with its song. This dramatic encounter is essentially the poem's climax. The bird is seen being pushed to the upper limit of its endurance but still remaining unwavering in its voice. The heightening of this strong quality demonstrates how it has been able to offer such widespread "warmth" to individuals. If the first stanza is the introduction of a hero figure, then this second stanza is its quest, a difficult journey through a harsh natural backdrop. The testing of the bird's resolve only further deepens the reader's impression of it as unbreakable. Finally, the bird's small stature only makes it more clear that the size of the hope does not determine its staying power.
The dashes and slant rhyme in these stanzas support the underlying idea of the bird's song. Much like its wordless tune, it never rises to completely overt rhyme, but buries its rhythms in subtlety. These formal features move the poem along while quietly underscoring its central image.
