Hope...

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.

~Emily Dickinson~