The word "passed" is repeated four times in stanzas three and four. They are "passing" by the children and grain, both still part of life. They are also "passing" out of time into eternity. The sun passes them as the sun does everyone who is buried. With the sun setting, it becomes dark, in contrast to the light of the preceding stanzas. It also becomes damp and cold ("dew grew quivering and chill"), in contrast to the warmth of the preceding stanza. Also the activity of stanza three contrasts with the inactivity of the speaker in stanzas four and five. They pause at the grave. What is the effect of describing it as a house?
In the final stanza, the speaker has moved into death; the language becomes ; in the previous stanzas the imagery was and specific. What is Dickinson saying about death or her knowledge of death with this change? The speaker only guesses ("surmised") that they are heading for eternity. Why does she have to guess? She has experienced life, but what does she specifically know about being dead? And why didn't death tell her? If eternity is their goal, can Immortality be a passenger? Or is this question too literal-minded?
Why does Dickinson change from past tense to present tense with the verb "feels" (line 2, stanza 6)? Does eternity have an end?
In this poem, exclusion occurs differently than it does in "The soul selects her own society" Here the speaker is excluded from activities and involvement in life; the dead are outside "the ring" of life. As you read Dickinson's poems, notice the ways in which exclusion occurs and think about whether it is accurate to characterize her as the poet of exclusion.
Dickinson defines hope with a , comparing it to a bird.
Stanza one
Hope is a "thing" because it is a feeling; the thing/feeling is like a bird. Dickinson uses the standard dictionary format for a definition; first she placed the word in a general category ("thing"), and then she differentiated it from everything else in that category. For instance, the definition of a cat would run something like this: a cat is a mammal (the first part of the definition places it in a category); the rest of the definition would be "which is nocturnal, fur-bearing, hunts at night, has pointed ears, etc. (the second part of the definition differentiates the cat from other all mammals).
Why does the bird "perch" in the soul? How would hope "perch," and why does it perch in the soul? As you read this poem, keep in mind that the subject is hope and that the bird metaphor is only defining hope. Whatever is being said of the bird applies to hope, and the application to hope is Dickinson's point in this poem.
The bird "sings." Is this a good or a bad thing? The tune is "without words." Is hope a matter of words, or is it a feeling about the future, a feeling which consists both of desire and expectation? Psychologically, is it true that hope never fails us, that hope is always possible?
Stanza two
Why is hope "sweetest" during a storm? When do we most need hope, when things are going well or when they are going badly?
Sore is being used in the sense of very great or severe; abash means to make ashamed, embarrassed, or self-conscious. Essentially only the most extreme or impossible-to-escape storm would affect the bird/hope. If the bird is "abashed" what would happen to the individual's hope? In a storm, would being "kept warm" be a plus or a minus, an advantage or a disadvantage?
Stanza three
What kind of place would "chillest" land be? would you want to vacation there, for instance? Yet in this coldest land, hope kept the individual warm. Is keeping the speaker warm a desirable or an undesirable act in these circumstances? Is "the strangest sea" a desirable or undesirable place to be? Would you need hope there? The bird, faithful and unabashed, follows and sings to the speaker ("I've heard it") under the worst, the most threatening of circumstances.
The last two lines are introduced by "Yet." What kind of connection does "yet" establish with the preceding ideas/stanzas? Does it lead you to expect similarity, contrast, an example, an irrelevancy, a joke? Even in the most critical circumstances the bird never asked for even a "crumb" in return for its support. What are the associations with "crumb"? would you be satisfied if your employer offered you "a crumb" in payment for your work? Also, is "a crumb" appropriate for a bird?
http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/cs6/hope.html
