More Feathers (poem becomes lyric)

I haven't been able to get this Emily Dickinson "Feathers" poem out of my head. In an earlier post I contrasted her confidence with my caution, but what she says rings so true that I have to include it on the CD. I guess we can feel differently about hope on different days--let the listener choose. The poem is clean, spare, and potent. But it doesn't sing so well (or, at least, I can't sing it well). At first I was hesitant to mess with a single syllable, but then took the plunge. It will be credited as "recklessly adapted from Emily Dickinson."


For anybody who might take an interest in the process, here's how it went. First, the poem:


Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune--but not 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.


The meaning is perfectly clear at the first reading--the complexity is in the layers of feelings, choices, and implications. But it's not so clear at first hearing, especially when there's the distraction of music. One of my weaknesses as a songwriter is that I get caught up in the poetry of what I write and easily slip-slide away from the requirement to communicate immediately and directly. I don't remember who said "A lyric should be a letter, not a poem," but I think they're right. (It can be a poetic letter).


I'd be hard-pressed to find a single flaw in Miss Dickinson's poem, but here are a couple of challenges it presents as lyric. The opening line is rhythmically irregular, not like other lines. It ends in what they call "a feminine foot," in that the last syllable is the unstressed one. Every other line ends in "a masculine foot." The last syllable is the stressed one. This poetic unit, two syllables with the second syllable stressed, is also called an "iamb" and is characteristic of most of the lines that Shakespeare wrote. "And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest." It feels real natural in English. I think Dickinson wrote her first line irregularly on purpose, in order to say "Okay, this notion is a little strange, but is the central image of this thought, so stick with me." (Also, she usually gets a lot of music out of variations both in rhythm and rhyme.)


['Scuse me for a minute--I have to get an impossible dress onto a doll. Or maybe the doll is impossible. Anyway, the combination is near enough to impossible... Back again.]


So I had to "regularize" the first line. I wound up with


Hope has wings. Self-assured,
it perches in the soul...


"Self-assured" was for two reasons, to regulate the line and to rhyme with "words" coming up. Trouble was, I'd chosen to set this to the tune of Dvorak's Largo from the New World Symphony ("Goin' Home," the funeral song) and the second set of three syllables had to be as strong as the first. "Self-assured" is a little clunky--therefore weak. Well, I had this new "wings" element. In the third line I had a "sings," albeit in the wrong place. So, recklessly adapting away, I got this stanza:


Hope has wings, feathered things. 
It perches in the soul 
and never words, but music sings, 
and never stops at all.

Dickinson's third line is clearer than this adaptation, but I had to have the rhyme. 

In the second stanza, I thought I ought to find a more accessible word than "abash" (which I love in the poem).

Sweetest in the gale it's heard, 
and sore must be the storm 
that might dismay this little bird 
that kept so many warm.


("Might" sings more clearly than "could" and I reckoned it was close enough in meaning.)


"In extremity" is too much to ask a modern listener to grab on the way by. Addressing that challenge involved a new rhyme and some re-ordering of the last line.

I've heard it in the chillest land,
and on the strangest sea;
yet starving, it would not demand
a single crumb of me.

The poet ended her piece right there. I had to reprise some of the language, just to have enough for a song. Also, this bird began being literal enough to me to have a gender. So here's the lyric as it stands. Hear it to the "Goin' Home" tune, but in a much quicker 6/8 (much too lively for a funeral).

Hope has wings, feathered things. 

She perches in the soul.

She has no words--still she sings, 

and never stops at all.

Sweetest in the gale she's heard, 

and sore must be the storm 

that might dismay this little bird 

that's kept so many warm.

I've heard her in the chillest land,
and on the strangest sea;
yet starving, she would not demand
a single crumb of me.

Hope has wings, feathered things. She perches in the soul.

She has no words--still she sings, and never stops at all.

(Instrumental Bridge)


I've heard her in the chillest land,
and on the strangest sea;
yet starving, she would not demand
a single crumb of me.

Sweetest in the gale she’s heard, and sore must be the storm  
that might dismay this little bird that’s kept so many warm--

this faithful friend, this little bird that’s kept so many warm.


All of Dickinson's choices are right. I hope some of mine are. It's heady company.