‘hope’ is a thing with feathers

(2023)

for children’s choir and piano

  • CBSO Children’s Choir; Julian Wilkins (cond.) at Symphony Hall, Birmingham, on (exact date TBC) February 2024.

  • for CBSO Children’s Choir

    ‘hope’ is a thing with feathers is a short song for young voices and piano, a setting of Emily Dickinson’s evocative poem of the same title which draws a symbolic link between birdsong and the indomitable (undefeatable) power of hope.

    -njd.

  • unison voices (optional harmony lines), piano

  • 2’

score sample

text

“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.

“Hope” is the thing with feathers
BY EMILY DICKINSON