"A Bird, came down the Walk" [by Emily Dickinson]

 

A Bird, came down the Walk - 

He did not know I saw -

He bit an Angle Worm in halves 

And ate the fellow, raw, 

 

And then, he drank a Dew

From a convenient Grass -

And then hopped sidewise to the Wall 

To let a Beetle pass -

 

He glanced with rapid eyes,

That hurried all abroad -

They looked like frightened Beads, I thought,

He stirred his Velvet Head. - 

 

Like one in danger, Cautious,

I offered him a Crumb,

And he unrolled his feathers, 

And rowed him softer Home -

 

Than Oars divide the Ocean,

Too silver for a seam,

Or Butterflies, off Banks of Noon, 

Leap, plashless as they swim. 

 

Ed. Note: Consider "Dew / From a convenient Grass," where "grass" would seem to be nature's glass. This is a magnificent poem on first reading or tenth. Dickinson's gift of negative capabilty is on display in her harmonious identification of the poet with a carnivorous bird, who dines, sips, looks around him cautiouisly, as if in danher, and wins the heart of the poet, a rower in an oceanic cosmos. Ideally one should recite the poem while juggling four pink balls or white bowling pins while a couple of writer friends applaud. -- DL

Comments

[Peter Fortunato]

The directness, the simplicity are under-girded by her peerless ear!

[Irene Sax]

I was thinking: Why is this not kitsch? Not a nursery rhyme? One reason is those amazing off-rhymes. Abroad/head, crumb/home, seam/swim.

[Robert McDowell]

Emily saw Life, what George Crabbe called "the life itself". So few see it with regularity. Emily saw it every moment in her daily life & in dreams. A nursery rhyme? Why not? In the work of a true visionary, categories are meaningless. Emily is as stylish as Josephine Baker dancing in Paris.