Thursday, April 22, 2010

Promise Unfulfilled

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

This is just another in a line of poems that capture something we've been promised but which remains undelivered. What is the phrase? "The check is in the mail ..."