Summary
The speaker describes once seeing a bird come down the walk, unaware that it
was being watched. The bird ate an angleworm, then “drank a Dew / From a
convenient Grass—,” then hopped sideways to let a beetle pass by. The bird’s
frightened, bead-like eyes glanced all around. Cautiously, the speaker offered
him “a Crumb,” but the bird “unrolled his feathers” and flew away—as though rowing
in the water, but with a grace gentler than that with which “Oars divide the
ocean” or butterflies leap “off Banks of Noon”; the bird appeared to swim
without splashing.
Form
Structurally, this poem is absolutely typical of Dickinson, using iambic trimeter
with occasional four-syllable lines, following a loose ABCB rhyme scheme, and
rhythmically breaking up the meter with long dashes. (In this poem, the dashes
serve a relatively limited function, occurring only at the end of lines, and
simply indicating slightly longer pauses at line breaks.)
Commentary
Emily Dickinson’s life proves that it is not necessary to travel widely or
lead a life full of Romantic grandeur and extreme drama in order to write great
poetry; alone in her house at Amherst, Dickinson pondered her experience as
fully, and felt it as acutely, as any poet who has ever lived. In this poem,
the simple experience of watching a bird hop down a path allows her to exhibit
her extraordinary poetic powers of observation and description.
Dickinson keenly depicts the bird as it eats a worm, pecks at the grass,
hops by a beetle, and glances around fearfully. As a natural creature
frightened by the speaker into flying away, the bird becomes an emblem for the
quick, lively, ungraspable wild essence that distances nature from the human
beings who desire to appropriate or tame it. But the most remarkable feature of
this poem is the imagery of its final stanza, in which Dickinson provides one
of the most breath-taking descriptions of flying in all of poetry. Simply by
offering two quick comparisons of flight and by using aquatic motion (rowing
and swimming), she evokes the delicacy and fluidity of moving through air. The
image of butterflies leaping “off Banks of Noon,” splashlessly swimming though
the sky, is one of the most memorable in all Dickinson’s writing.
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In the Garden
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. |
The speaker observes the bird and tries to establish contact with the bird
by offering it food. The bird flies off. A few of the speaker's details
describe the bird as a wild creature in nature, and more details present his
behavior and his appearance in terms of human behavior.
Stanza one
Because the bird does not know the speaker is present, he behaves naturally,
that is, his behavior is not affected by her presence. We see the bird's
"wildness" or non-humanness in his biting the worm in half and eating
it. "Raw" continues to emphasize his wildness. Ironically
the word "raw" carries an implication of civilized values and practices
("raw" implicitly contrasts with cooked food). Why mention that the
bird ate the worm raw? Would you expect the bird to cook the worm? In contrast,
the fact that the bird "came" down the walk sounds civilized,
socialized. Does this description sound like someone walking on a
sidewalk?
Stanza two
The birds' drinking dew (note the alliteration)
suggests a certain refinement, and "from a grass" makes the action
resemble the human action of drinking from a glass. And the bird politely
allows a beetle to pass.
Stanza three
In lines one and two, the description of the bird's looking around is
factual description and suggests the bird's caution and fear, as well as a possible
threat in nature. With lines three and four, the speaker describes the bird in
terms of civilization, with "beads" and "velvet."
Stanza four
The idea of danger in nature is made explicit but remains a minor note in
this stanza and in the poem. It occupies only half a line, "Like one in
danger." "Cautious," the speaker offers the crumb. How is
"cautious " meant? Does the speaker feel the need to be cautious? or
does she offer the crumb cautiously? (One of the characteristics of Dickinson's
poetry is a tendency to drop endings as well as connecting words and phrases;
you have to decide whether she has dropped the -ly ending from
"cautious.")
Her action causes the bird to fly off. Her description of his flight details
his beauty and the grace of his flight, a description which takes six lines.
Does the idea of danger or of the bird's beauty receive more emphasis, or are
the danger and the beauty emphasized equally? Does it matter in this poem
whether one receives more emphasis than the other, that is, would the different
emphases affect the meaning of the poem?
I am suggesting that this poem reveals both the danger and the beauty of
nature. Does the poem support this reading? What might Dickinson's purpose be
in having the narrator see the bird in "civilized" terms? Is it a way
of pushing away or of controlling the threat and terrors that are always
present and may suddenly appear in nature?
