Where It All Goes Down
For all you math fans out there, here's an equation that this poem throws at us: bird = hope. What? We never said it was a complex equation. More accurately, and to put it in poetry terms, this is an extended metaphor, in which the speaker of the poem consistently compares the concept of hope to a bird.
If we were to take things literally, we might expect our setting to be a tree limb or a birdcage. But we're treading in figurative territory here, especially when we learn that this metaphorical bird "perches in the soul" (2). While that detail finally explains the inspiration for one of our favorite They Might Be Giants songs, it doesn't really get us any closer to determining the setting.
For that, we have to scroll down to the second and third stanzas. Sure, this poem is dealing with an abstract notion (hope), and so we could be tempted to see this as set somewhere intangible, like "in the human spirit." But notice what's going on in these last two stanzas: storms, and lots of them. We also get cold lands and strange seas. Yes, it seems that our speaker's bird metaphor has led her to set the rest of the poem in—wait for it—the natural world.
We say more about this over in "Themes," but for now we'll just point out how nature is a pretty awesome choice for a poem about hope. It's a place that can be, well, pretty mean to people—what with all the natural disasters, forbidding geography, and fearsome creatures—so as a setting it provides a great backdrop to highlight the importance of hope for anyone who might feel like the world—natural or otherwise—is against them.