A Bird, came down the Walk

Emily Dickinson’s “A Bird, came down the Walk” narrates the relationship between the poem’s speaker and the animal world. Though the poem’s main subject might appear to be its titular bird, the poem organizes itself around a series of inter-species encounters that illustrate the speaker’s conception of nature and the human-animal connection that drives the dynamic. Throughout the poem, the speaker depicts nature as something both ordinary and yet arrestingly beautiful.

The poem’s first stanza creates a sense of disconnection between the human and the animal. While the speaker is interested in the bird, the bird does “not know [the speaker] saw” (Line 2) him. This difference in attention signals a larger split in the desires and needs of the two different species. The bird demonstrates this split in desires when he bites the “Angle Worm in halves” (3), literally splitting the creature in two. The poem’s speaker is sympathetic with the worm’s plight, viewing it as the bird’s “fellow” (Line 4) and acknowledging the eating of the worm “raw” (Line 4), but the bird’s behavior is depicted in a matter-of-fact, naturalistic way.

The speaker then watches the bird drink “From a convenient Grass” (Line 6) that mimics the conveniences of human civilization, drawing connections between animal and human. Likewise, the bird demonstrates his own civility by “hopp[ing] sideways to the Wall / To let a Beetle pass” (Line 8). This small act of kindness demonstrates the bird’s ability to empathize and co-exist with other creatures in the same way the “convenient Grass” (Line 6) co-exists with him, suggesting the ways in which nature can sometimes work in harmony instead of along merely antagonistic lines.

Despite the distance between the bird and speaker as different species, the speaker occasionally implies a deep connection between them. When the speaker first introduces the bird, it is described as coming “down the Walk” (Line 1). In using the manmade “Walk” instead of appearing on the grass, the bird uses a human convenience for traversing the natural world, giving it the appearance of mimicking human behavior. Similarly, instead of flying, the bird navigates this walkway on his two feet, and only hops aside to make way for the passing beetle. For the first three stanzas, the bird and speaker both navigate earth on their two feet and are connected through this shared movement. The bird and speaker, in this regard, stand in contrast to the “Angle Worm” (Line 3), who has no legs, and the “Beetle” (Line 8), who has six.

While the speaker demonstrates a growing connection with nature as they watch the bird, the third stanza reinforces the distance between human and animal. The bird, who “glance[s] around with rapid eyes” (Line 9) appears to be afraid, presumably because he finally sees the speaker. The bird’s eyes move “all abroad” (Line 10) in search of an escape, and his eyes appear to the speaker as “frightened Beads” (Line 11). The metaphorical connection between the bird’s eyes and beads suggests both his paralyzing fear—the false eyes evoking images of taxidermized birds—and the speaker’s inability to see the life in the creature’s movements.

In the fourth stanza, the bird continues to seem unsure and fearful, “Like one in danger, Cautious” (Line 13). The speaker then offers the bird a “Crumb” (Line 14), initiating a moment of direct connection and showing friendly intentions towards the bird. While it is not clear whether the bird accepts the crumb or not, he then departs from the walk, “unroll[ling] his feathers” (Line 15) and “row[ing]” himself “Home” (Line 16), abandoning the manmade aspects of the walk and his interaction with the speaker in favor of a full return to his natural realm. The speaker admires the bird’s elegance in flight, describing his “row[ing]” as “softer [. . .] / Than Oars divide the ocean” (Lines 16-17). In this way, the bird’s graceful and seamless motion in flying supersedes that of human activity when using “Oars [to] divide the ocean” as it is even “softer” than human motion. The bird’s motion in flight is also compared to that of “Butterflies” (Line 19) and their beating wings, which “Leap, plashless as they swim” through the air (Line 20). The poem thus closes with the speaker admiring the bird, suggesting that there is something beautiful and enchanting in even the most routine encounters with nature.