A new year dawns and perhaps we see glimmers of hope in the news even though the general picture seems rather bleak.
I have therefore chosen poems about hope for the first week of a new year starting with Emily Dickinson’s “’Hope’ is the thing with feathers”, John Clare’s “The Instinct of Hope”, and Edward Thomas’s “Thaw”.
Poem 121. “Hope” is the thing with feathers
And sore must be the storm —
Emily Dickinson (1830—1886)
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm —
“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.
This is a simple poem that expresses the notion of hope very well, I think, by using the metaphor of a bird whose song defies all but the mightiest storm and which one finds everywhere, inspiring the hearer and demanding nothing in return.
Links
- Read about the poem on Wikipedia.
Poem 122. The Instinct of Hope
And surely man is no inferior flower
John Clare (1793—1864)
To die unworthy of a second spring?
Is there another world for this frail dust
To warm with life and be itself again?
Something about me daily speaks there must,
And why should instinct nourish hopes in vain?
’Tis nature’s prophesy that such will be,
And everything seems struggling to explain
The close sealed volume of its mystery.
Time wandering onward keeps its usual pace
As seeming anxious of eternity,
To meet that calm and find a resting place.
E’en the small violet feels a future power
And waits each year renewing blooms to bring,
And surely man is no inferior flower
To die unworthy of a second spring?
John Clare needed hope more than most people of his day and this poem expresses his desire that a second, more glorious, life would follow the desperate one he was forced into by his mental health problems. Surely, he argues, if flowers can achieve a kind of resurrection year by year, the human race can also expect a similar rebirth to a better life.
Poem 123. Thaw
And saw from elm-tops, delicate as flowers of grass,
Edward Thomas (1878—1917)
What we below could not see, Winter pass.
Over the land freckled with snow half-thawed
The speculating rooks at their nests cawed
And saw from elm-tops, delicate as flowers of grass,
What we below could not see, Winter pass.
This is such a short poem, but it speaks to me of the fact that although the winter seems to us unending and harsh, the crows in the treetops can see the land beginning to wake from hibernation and the promise that the difficulties of winter will be supplanted by the easier days of spring. By extension, any difficulty we face has a fixed term: an hour, a day, a week, a year; even bad things will not last forever and though we may not be able to see the end of the winter, it is nonetheless on its way.