Hope is the thing with feathers by Emily Dickinson

Dickinson talks of Hope, which is personified here as a sweet singing bird that continues to sing even when the gale is blowing. It exasperates the Gale who tries to show his strength to intimidate the bird but that doesn't happen. Of course, its bravery in singing in the presence of gale gives warmth/support/hope to others.

The narrator says that she has heard it, seen the bird's presence in the harsh places and "strangest sea" but the bird never asked a crumb from the narrator, in other words, it doesn't require 

Analysis

Unarguably, the narrator compares hope with a bird. A hope resides in human soul because it is beyond the harsh crude real world. It could be said that it is like a source of light in the soul. Hope motivates us even when there is no respite outwards, it has his own song when there aren't words and it never stops. In other words, hope never dies even in dire situation but we hope that things will be better soon.

In the next stanza, misfortune is compared to Gale (strong wind), and even in the advent of gale, it is still spreading sweetness with its song and certainly the gale must be "sore" that how this little bird cheer before him.

The narrator has heard its song even in the "chillest" i.e. harsh lands and but the hope in the form asks nothing from the narrator because maybe hope doesn't need anything to sustain itself, it is self-powered, it has its own source of living or maybe it never dies.