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 chilliest land And on the strangest sea;Yet, never, in extremity, It asked a crumb of me.

The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson