HOPE – A POEM AND A PAINTING

Hope

Hope by Alice Dunbar-Nelson

Wild seas of tossing, writhing waves,
A wreck half-sinking in the tortuous gloom;
One man clings desperately, while Boreas raves,
And helps to blot the rays of moon and star,
Then comes a sudden flash of light,
Which gleams on shores afar.

Hope

‘Hope’ by George Frederic Watts

Martin Luther King Jr. based a 1959 sermon, now known as Shattered Dreams, on the theme of this painting by George Frederic Watts. Among the congregation for the latter was the young Barack Obama, who was deeply moved. Obama took "The Audacity of Hope" as the theme of his 2004 Democratic National Convention keynote address, and as the title of his 2006 book; he based his successful 2008 presidential campaign around the theme of "Hope".

“Hope is that thing inside us that insists, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us if we have the courage to reach for it and to work for it and to fight for it.”

Barak Obama, Iowa Caucus Speech, 2008