Feathers and Frogs

Song Cycle by Gwyneth Walker (b. 1947)

1. Hope is the Thing with Feathers [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English

Hope is [the]¹ 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.

Text Authorship:

by Emily Dickinson (1830 - 1886), no title, appears in Poems: Second Series, first published 1891

See other settings of this text.

Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):

FRE French (Français) (Guy Laffaille) , copyright © 2018, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
GER German (Deutsch) (Walter A. Aue) , copyright © 2010, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
GER German (Deutsch) [singable] (Bertram Kottmann) , copyright © 2011, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

View original text (without footnotes)
¹ Syderman: "a"; further changes may exist not noted.

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

2. I'm Nobody! [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English

I'm nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there's a pair of us - don't tell!
They'd [banish us]¹, you know.

How dreary to be somebody!
How public, like a frog
To tell [your]² name the livelong [day]³
To an admiring bog!

Text Authorship:

by Emily Dickinson (1830 - 1886), no title, appears in Poems: Second Series, first published 1891

See other settings of this text.

Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):

View original text (without footnotes)
¹ Bacon, G. Coates: "advertise"
² Bacon, G. Coates: "one's"
³ Bacon, G. Coates: "June"

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

Total word count: 117