Theme · 61 poems

Poems About Hope

The thing with feathers, and its descendants: poems that hold a light steady without pretending the dark isn't there.

LengthForm

"Hope" is the thing with feathers

Emily Dickinson · 1891

"Hope" is the thing with feathers —That perches in the soul —And sings the tune without the words —

12 lines · lyric

Sonnet 29: When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes

William Shakespeare · 1609

When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyesI all alone beweep my outcast state,And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,

14 lines · sonnet

I, Too

Langston Hughes · 1926

I, too, sing America.I am the darker brother.They send me to eat in the kitchen

18 lines · free verse

Sympathy

Paul Laurence Dunbar · 1899

I know what the caged bird feels, alas!When the sun is bright on the upland slopes;When the wind stirs soft through the springing grass,

21 lines · lyric

No Coward Soul Is Mine

Emily Brontë · 1846

The following are the last lines my sister Emily ever wrote.No coward soul is mine,No trembler in the world's storm-troubled sphere:

29 lines · lyric

The Darkling Thrush

Thomas Hardy · 1900

I leant upon a coppice gateWhen Frost was spectre-gray,And Winter's dregs made desolate

32 lines · lyric

Crocus in the Frost

The QuillOak Editors

crocus in the frosttoo early, and unbothered —teach me that, small one

3 lines · haiku

A Birthday Blessing

The QuillOak Editors

May your coffee stay hot, may your phone hold its charge,may small luck find you daily and big luck loom large;may the year rolling toward you arrive like a friend —

4 lines · quatrain

H-O-P-E (an Acrostic)

The QuillOak Editors

Hold on — not to how it was,Only to what it still could be;Plant something small in the wreckage,

4 lines · acrostic

A Wish with a Face

The QuillOak Editors

We painted a room for a rumor,bought socks for a hope,hummed songs to a heartbeat

6 lines · free verse

Somewhat, to hope for

Emily Dickinson

Somewhat, to hope for,Be it ne'er so farIs Capital against Despair —

6 lines · lyric

The Zero on the Cake

The QuillOak Editors

A zero on the birthday cakecan read like a full stop —a summit marker, halfway sign,

8 lines · lyric

Doctor's Orders, Friend's Addendum

The QuillOak Editors

Doctor's orders, friend's addendum:soup, and sleep, and silly shows;let the world spin on without you —

8 lines · lyric

Until You're Well

The QuillOak Editors

While you mend,the world has agreed to wait —the jokes will keep,

8 lines · free verse

Commencement

The QuillOak Editors

They named it wrong on purpose:commencement — a beginning,held at the end of everything you've known —

8 lines · free verse

Seed Beneath the Ground

The QuillOak Editors

The earth makes no announcementwhen winter's grip lets go —just crocuses, like trumpets,

8 lines · lyric

Choose Generously

The QuillOak Editors

Midnight will make its noise,but the year actually beginstomorrow, mid-morning,

8 lines · free verse

And this of all my Hopes

Emily Dickinson

And this of all my HopesThis, is the silent endBountiful colored, my Morning rose

8 lines · lyric

Could Hope inspect her Basis

Emily Dickinson

Could Hope inspect her BasisHer Craft were done —Has a fictitious Charter

8 lines · lyric

Except the Heaven had come so near

Emily Dickinson

Except the Heaven had come so near —So seemed to choose My Door —The Distance would not haunt me so —

8 lines · lyric

Hope is a strange invention

Emily Dickinson

Hope is a strange invention —A Patent of the Heart —In unremitting action

8 lines · lyric

Hope is a subtle Glutton

Emily Dickinson

Hope is a subtle Glutton —He feeds upon the Fair —And yet — inspected closely

8 lines · lyric

The Service without Hope

Emily Dickinson

The Service without Hope —Is tenderest, I think —Because 'tis unsustained

8 lines · lyric

The way Hope builds his House

Emily Dickinson

The way Hope builds his HouseIt is not with a sill —Nor Rafter — has that Edifice

8 lines · lyric

This is the place they hoped before

Emily Dickinson

This is the place they hoped before,Where I am hoping now.The seed of disappointment grew

8 lines · lyric

When I hoped I feared

Emily Dickinson

When I hoped I feared —Since I hoped I daredEverywhere alone

8 lines · lyric

Dust of Snow

Robert Frost · 1923

The way a crowShook down on meThe dust of snow

8 lines · lyric

A Noiseless Patient Spider

Walt Whitman · 1871

A noiseless patient spider,I mark'd where on a little promontory it stood isolated,Mark'd how to explore the vacant vast surrounding,

10 lines · free verse

Hymn

Edgar Allan Poe

At morn — at noon — at twilight dim —Maria! thou hast heard my hymn!In joy and wo — in good and ill —

12 lines · lyric

Our journey had advanced

Emily Dickinson

Our journey had advanced —Our feet were almost comeTo that odd Fork in Being's Road —

12 lines · lyric

To Zante

Edgar Allan Poe

Fair isle, that from the fairest of all flowers, Thy gentlest of all gentle names dost take!How many memories of what radiant hours

14 lines · lyric

Lines

Percy Bysshe Shelley

That time is dead for ever, child!Drowned, frozen, dead for ever!We look on the past

14 lines · lyric

Sonnet: Political Greatness

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Nor happiness, nor majesty, nor fame,Nor peace, nor strength, nor skill in arms or arts,Shepherd those herds whom tyranny makes tame;

14 lines · lyric

Sonnet 119: What potions have I drunk of Siren tears

William Shakespeare

What potions have I drunk of Siren tears,Distill'd from limbecks foul as hell within,Applying fears to hopes, and hopes to fears,

14 lines · sonnet

Sonnet 143: Lo, as a careful housewife runs to catch

William Shakespeare

Lo, as a careful housewife runs to catchOne of her feather'd creatures broke away,Sets down her babe, and makes all swift dispatch

14 lines · sonnet

Sonnet 26: Lord of my love, to whom in vassalage

William Shakespeare

Lord of my love, to whom in vassalageThy merit hath my duty strongly knit,To thee I send this written embassage,

14 lines · sonnet

Sonnet 52: So am I as the rich, whose blessed key

William Shakespeare

So am I as the rich, whose blessed key,Can bring him to his sweet up-locked treasure,The which he will not every hour survey,

14 lines · sonnet

On His Blindness

John Milton · 1673

"All service ranks the same with God!There is no first or last."When I consider how my light is spent

15 lines · sonnet

Had I presumed to hope

Emily Dickinson

Had I presumed to hope —The loss had been to MeA Value — for the Greatness' Sake —

16 lines · lyric

Death

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Death is here and death is there,Death is busy everywhere,All around, within, beneath,

16 lines · lyric

A Mother’s Lament for her Son’s Death

Robert Burns

FATE gave the word, the arrow sped, And pierc’d my darling’s heart;And with him all the joys are fled

16 lines · lyric

Up-Hill

Christina Rossetti · 1862

Does the road wind up-hill all the way?Yes, to the very end.Will the day's journey take the whole long day?

16 lines · lyric

A great Hope fell

Emily Dickinson

A great Hope fellYou heard no noiseThe Ruin was within

17 lines · lyric

Time Long Past

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Like the ghost of a dear friend deadIs Time long past.A tone which is now forever fled,

18 lines · lyric

St. Martin's Summer

Robert Louis Stevenson

AS swallows turning backwardWhen half-way o'er the sea,At one word's trumpet summons

18 lines · lyric

Imitation

Edgar Allan Poe

A dark unfathomed tideOf interminable pride —A mystery, and a dream,

20 lines · lyric

Hope

Emily Brontë

Hope was but a timid friend;She sat without the grated den,Watching how my fate would tend,

20 lines · lyric

A Prayer in the Prospect of Death

Robert Burns

O THOU unknown, Almighty Cause Of all my hope and fear!In whose dread presence, ere an hour,

20 lines · lyric

Good and Bad Children

Robert Louis Stevenson

Children, you are very little,And your bones are very brittle;If you would grow great and stately,

20 lines · lyric

The Happiest Day

Edgar Allan Poe

The happiest day — the happiest hour My seared and blighted heart hath known,The highest hope of pride and power,

24 lines · lyric

Those fair—fictitious People

Emily Dickinson

Those fair — fictitious People —The Women — plucked awayFrom our familiar Lifetime —

24 lines · lyric

When I hoped, I recollect

Emily Dickinson

When I hoped, I recollectJust the place I stood —At a Window facing West —

24 lines · lyric

Death Is Nothing at All

Henry Scott Holland · 1910

Death is nothing at all.It does not count.I have only slipped away into the next room.

25 lines · prose poem

From “Later Life”

Christina Rossetti

VIWe lack, yet cannot fix upon the lack:Not this, nor that; yet somewhat, certainly.

30 lines · lyric

"Arcturus" is his other name

Emily Dickinson

"Arcturus" is his other name —I'd rather call him "Star."It's very mean of Science

32 lines · lyric

Christmas Bells

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow · 1863

"I heard the bells on Christmas DayTheir old familiar carols play,And wild and sweet

35 lines · lyric

The Light of Stars

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The night is come, but not too soon;And sinking silently,All silently, the little moon

36 lines · lyric

My Father was a Farmer: A Ballad

Robert Burns

MY father was a farmer upon the Carrick border, O,And carefully he bred me in decency and order, O;He bade me act a manly part, though I had ne’er a farthing, O;

36 lines · lyric

To Hope

John Keats

When by my solitary hearth I sit, And hateful thoughts enwrap my soul in gloom;When no fair dreams before my "mind's eye" flit,

48 lines · lyric

Caledonia: A Ballad

Robert Burns

THERE was once a day, but old Time wasythen young, That brave Caledonia, the chief of her line,From some of your northern deities sprung,

48 lines · lyric