A Bird Came Down the Walk

by Emily Dickinson

About the author

Emily Dickinson was born in Amherst, Massachusetts, on December 10, 1830, into a prominent, but not
wealthy, family. She is known as one of America’s greatest poets.
Emily was a keen artist and accomplished musician. She had a sharp eye for beautiful art which is evident in
many of her poems. She was an introvert, meaning she kept to herself most of the time and rarely went
outside of her home. However, she was gifted with a powerful imagination and intelligence and she had
written more than 1800 poems. Her poetry is marked by acute observation and rich imagination. This poem
is based on a very ordinary incident. A bird eats a worm and flies away refusing a crumb offered by the poet
who turns this apparently commonplace incident into a poetic masterpiece with her rich imagination.

Appreciation
The poem begins with the line: “A bird came down the Walk-”. This line strikes rather odd due to several
reasons. For one thing, we normally say ‘a bird flew down.” It seems the poet wanted to attribute some human
qualities to the bird. This is further reinforced by the word “Walk”. A walk, as a noun, refers to a route or lane
used for leisurely walking. It is similar to a jogging track used by people for jogging or walking. Thus, the bird
is compared to a person who is having a leisurely walk in the evening. This creates slight humour which
contrasts sharply with the tension created by the third and fourth lines where the bird “bit an Angleworm in
halves/And ate the fellow, raw.”
Further, the bird’s apparently ‘civilized’ behaviour contrasts sharply with his ‘wild’ behaviour in eating the
Angleworm ‘raw’. The word “raw” gets an additional weight because it rhymes with the word “saw” in the
second line. Whether it is ‘civilized’ or ‘wild’, this natural behaviour of the bird is so far unaffected by the
presence of the speaker as the poet says “He did not know I saw-“. Further, the word “fellow” contributes to
the playful tone. Obviously, the poet is not ‘shocked’ by the bird’s act. In fact, he presents nature as it is, both
its beauty and wildness, as an observer. The poet may be also suggesting the cruelty hidden behind the
façade of civility in the society in this stanza. The rhyming pattern abcb continues in the subsequent stanzas.

Look at the first two lines of the second stanza:

And then he drank a Dew
From a convenient Grass—

The bird’s human-like quality is further emphasized in these two lines. Normally we, humans, take pride in
the fact that we are superior to all other species of animals. However, the poet seems to suggest in these
lines that animals are no less superior to humans, in their own way. The use of the indefinite article ‘a’ also
deserves our attention here. Normally we expect ‘a drop of dew’ in the first line. However, the use of ‘a Dew’
and the alliteration of the ‘d’ sound seem to enhance the poise and refinement of the bird. The sparkling
beauty of the dew also symbolizes the beauty of the pristine nature unspoilt by industrialization.

In the next line, the poet uses an unusual phrase: ‘a convenient Grass’. The word ‘Grass’ (again ‘a’ glass)
rhymes strongly with ‘glass’ which suggests an echo-pun on glass. This creates a picture of a person drinking
from a glass. Further, the bird finds his food and drinks easily, maybe more easily than humans.

1
These lines also remind another poem by D.H. Lawrence. In this poem called ‘Snake’, Lawrence, the narrator
is mesmerized by the graceful behaviour of the snake. This is how he describes the way the snake drank
water from his water trough:

“He sipped with his straight mouth,

Softly drank through his straight gums, into his slack long body,
Silently.”

The soft alliteration of the ‘s’ sound together with the slow, graceful rhythm creates a tantalizing effect.
This graceful behaviour of the bird in our poem is further highlighted in the next two lines:

And then hopped sidewise to the Wall

To let a Beetle pass—

Here, the bird gets aside to let a beetle pass- a very courteous movement indeed! Our bird seems to know
his manners! Doesn’t this suggest that animals have their own ‘etiquette’? Surely, the poet seems to be
marvelling at the beauty and gracefulness of the untamed nature in these lines. Further, in these two stanzas,
the poet seems to anthropomorphize the bird. In other words, she attributes human qualities to the bird.

Among the lines in the stanzas, dashes are occasionally used to break the rhythm. This breaking of the
rhythm suggests that the bird is uneasy and even unsteady in the ground as its natural habitat is the sky.

In the third stanza, the poet describes the bird’s frightened behaviour after eating the worm:

“He glanced with rapid eyes

That hurried all around—
They looked like frightened Beads, I thought—
He stirred his Velvet Head”

The bird’s glancing around with rapid, frightened eyes suggests both caution and fear. As some critics
suggest, it is because the bird feels guilty and he is afraid of the consequences of his ‘cruel’ act. This idea
cannot be agreed with, because it is quite natural for a bird to eat a worm. Surely we don’t expect them to
buy sausages from a supermarket!? Rather, it may be a fear common to all animals since they are constantly
exposed to various dangers, especially from predators.
In the famous Novel ‘Village in the Jungle’ (of Beddegama), Leonard Woolf says:
‘For the rule of the jungle is first fear, and then hunger and thirst. There is fear everywhere…’

The poet compares the bird’s eyes to ‘frightened beads’. The poet personifies the bead in this line. A bead
with its tiny hole and rolling motion is a stunning image to describe a bird’s eyes as it is light and lustrous.
However, it also suggests a certain hard quality in the bird. This contrasts sharply with the ‘velvet head’ which
suggests certain fluffiness and beauty.

The Fourth stanza opens with the line:

“Like one in danger, Cautious,”

We are tempted to ask ‘what is the danger?’ and the reason for his being ‘cautious’. Well, as mentioned
before, a bird’s natural domain is the sky and thus, he tends to behave rather clumsily and nervously on the
ground. As such, the above line describes his behaviour on the ground.

The next line marks the turning point in the poem:

“I offered him a Crumb,”
2
So far, the poet was just observing the bird as an indirect onlooker. But now she intervenes in the action and
offers him a crumb. The poet’s action may also be symbolic. It might symbolize man’s intervention with nature
and perhaps, his attempt to tame nature. The action of offering a crumb is also suggestive of the man’s
condescending attitude towards animals.

However, instead of eating the crumb, the bird takes flight immediately:

“And he unrolled his feathers,

And rowed him softer Home –”

The bird contemptuously rejects the crumb and begins to fly towards home. The bird’s action might symbolize
man’s futile and unsuccessful attempt to tame nature. These two lines also begin a series of spectacular
images used to describe the bird’s flight. Once in the sky, the bird begins to appear in all its glory and
splendour as it is his natural domain. The smooth actions of ‘rolling’ and ‘rowing’ together with the assonance
of the ‘o’ sound contribute to the fluidity of the movement. The bird takes off into the sky with so much
ebullience ‘as a duck takes to water’, as the saying goes.

The last stanza is the most memorable one in the poem. The poet savours image after image of exquisite
beauty which describes the breathtaking flight of the bird:

“Than Oars divide the Ocean,

Too silver for a seam,
Or Butterflies, off Banks of Noon,
Leap, plashless as they swim.”

In the first line, the bird’s feathers are compared to the oars which are used to propel a boat forward. The
movement of oars creates hardly any disturbance in the water; likewise, the bird’s wings do not make any
disturbance or impact on the sky; Its flight is ‘seamless’. It does not leave any mark in the sky just like oars
which do not leave any ‘seam’ or mark on the water. The comparison between the ocean and the sky is quite
striking. The bird’s flight may also symbolize perfect harmony in nature. The assonance of the ‘o’ sound in
the first line and the consonance of the ‘s’ sound in the second line also contribute to the lyrical beauty of the
lines. The word ‘silver’ has the connotations of gracefulness and glamour in addition to beauty.

In the next two lines, the bird’s flight is compared to another scene of breathtaking beauty: that of butterflies
fluttering on the banks of a river. First, he compared to bird’s flight to an inanimate object (oars) and now he
compares them to an animate thing (butterflies). The poet makes an implied comparison between the
butterflies and fish when she says ‘they swim’. It again suggests the smoothness and the gracefulness of the
bird’s flight through the sky. ‘Plashless’, a rather uncommon word, means smooth or fluid.

Through this poem, the poet highlights both the beauty and the danger of untamed nature. Another famous
poem called ‘A narrow Fellow in the Grass’ also deals with a similar theme.

Themes
Independence, Self-dependency and self-sufficiency in nature
The poet seems to highlight the fact that nature is self-sufficient and has no need to seek help from others to
survive. No interference from man is needed for nature to move forward.

3
Danger and beauty of the natural world
In most poetry, especially Romantic, humankind finds peace in nature; it is a welcoming mother. Here, in
Dickinson’s poem, both the bird and the speaker feel "cautious" in it, out of place, and afraid. Nature, for
Dickinson, is insensate (lacking compassion), a place of danger.
Nature is also depicted as something.

Poetic Devices
Quatrain: A quatrain is a four-lined stanza borrowed from Persian poetry. Here each stanza is a quatrain.

Rhyme Scheme: The poem follows the ABCB rhyme scheme and this pattern continues till the end.

Stanza: A stanza is a poetic form of some lines. There are five stanzas in this poem, with each comprising
four lines.

Assonance: the sound of /o/ in ‘And rowed him softer Home’ and the sound of /i/ in ‘They looked like
frightened Beads, I thought’.

Alliteration: the sound of /l/ in ‘They looked like frightened Beads, I thought’.
Consonance: Consonance is the repetition of consonant sounds in the same line. For example, the sound
of /d/ in ‘And then hopped sidewise to the Wall’ and the sound of /n/ in ‘And then, he drank a Dew’.

Enjambment: It is defined as a thought in verse that does not come to an end at a line break. Instead, it is
continued in the next line or verse. For example,

“And then hopped sidewise to the Wall

To let a Beetle pass.”
Personification: The bird is personified throughout the poem. The poet uses ‘he’ instead of ‘it’ in the following
verses, ‘He bit an Angle Worm in halves’/ ‘And he unrolled his feathers’/ ‘And rowed him softer Home’.

Visual Imagery
Throughout the whole poem, the poetess builds up visual imagery, especially related to the bird.
“A Bird, came down the Walk”, “He bit an Angle Worm in halves” and “I offered him a Crumb.”

Simile
The bird's eyes are compared to beads.
'They look like frightened beads, I thought’

Through this simile, the poetess visualises how the eyes of the bird shine. It also emphasizes the fear of the
bird because it always expects danger from its immediate environment.