Literature/Emily Dickinson

A Bird came down the Walk

Emily Dickinson, 1891

Emily Dickinson's poem of a bird on a garden path that eats a worm, drinks the dew and flies off.

A bird came down the walk:He did not know I saw;He bit an angle-worm in halvesAnd ate the fellow, raw.

And then he drank a dewFrom a convenient grass,And then hopped sidewise to the wallTo let a beetle pass.

He glanced with rapid eyesThat 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 feathersAnd 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.