A Bird came down the Walk— by Emily Dickinson
"A Bird came down the Walk—" by Emily Dickinson is a poem that explores the complexities of nature through the seemingly simple act of a bird walking along a path. The work contrasts the delicate beauty of the natural world with its underlying brutality, as the bird captures and consumes a worm, illustrating the harsh realities of survival. The narrator's cautious observations reveal a shared vulnerability between herself and the bird, both aware of the potential dangers surrounding them. The bird's actions are depicted as both instinctual and conscious, as it glances around, illustrating a tension between its natural instincts and the awareness of being watched. Dickinson employs imagery that evokes both charm and menace, suggesting that beneath the surface of nature's elegance lies a more sinister reality. The poem ultimately invites readers to reflect on the coexistence of gentility and savagery in the natural world, emphasizing how appearances can be deceiving. This duality prompts a deeper contemplation of the relationship between humanity and nature, encouraging an appreciation of the complexities inherent in both.
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A Bird came down the Walk— by Emily Dickinson
Excerpted from an article in Magill’s Survey of American Literature, Revised Edition
First published: 1891
Type of work: Poem
The Work
This is the finest example of Dickinson’s nature verse, for it perfectly juxtaposes elements of superficial gentility against the inner barbarity that characterizes the workings of the world. The narrator chances to see a bird walking along a pathway, but just as the scene appears perfect, the bird seizes upon a worm, bites it in two, and devours it. The bird drinks some dew on nearby grass (note the alternate for a drinking “glass”), then graciously steps aside, right to a wall, to allow a beetle to pass. The bird, like one fearful of being caught in an unacceptable action, glances around quickly with darting eyes.
“Cautious” describes both the demeanor of the bird and that of the observing narrator. Both feel threatened, the bird of the possible consequences of its savagery, the narrator because she is next on the bird’s path. She “offered him a Crumb,” not because she admires the bird but out of fear and expediency. The bird, sensing that it has escaped any potentially harmful consequences for what it has done, struts a bit as “he unrolled his feathers” and “rowed him softer home—.” Ironically, its walk is too casual, softer than oars dividing a seamless ocean or butterflies leaping into noon’s banks, all without a splash. Behind its soft, charming, and genteel facade, nature is menacing, and its hypocritical attempts to conceal its barbarism make it more frightening.
Bibliography
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Brantley, Richard E. Experience and Faith: The Late-Romantic Imagination of Emily Dickinson. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004.
Carruth, Hayden. “Emily Dickinson’s Unexpectedness.” Ironwood 14 (1986): 51-57.
Eberwein, Jane Donahue. An Emily Dickinson Encyclopedia. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1998.
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Juhasz, Suzanne, ed. Feminist Critics Read Emily Dickinson. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1983.
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Vendler, Helen Hennessey. Poets Thinking: Pope, Whitman, Dickinson, Yeats. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2004.