Hope is the thing with feathers

Emily Dickinson's "Hope is the thing with feathers" is the first poem I ever remember reading. All these years later, she still remains to be my favorite poet. I love this poem so much, I think I have most of it memorized. Because Dickinson never titled her work, this poem is sometimes known as poem 254.

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.