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Emily DickinsonA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Dickinson’s poem offers both a matter-of-fact portrait of a bird’s animalistic behavior while also depicting with sympathy the dynamics between different species. In its emphasis on a small, localized ecosystem full of birds, worms, and beetles, Dickinson participates in the kind of ecological examination popular at the time, while expressing an attentiveness and admiration of nature’s workings. The state of nature in “A Bird, came down the Walk” has harmonious and disharmonious elements that result in a complex and comprehensive depiction of an ecosystem in an otherwise simple, compressed work.
The bird’s behavior is presented as both instinctive and animalistic, and yet capable of refinement and beauty. In the first stanza, the bird is looking for a meal: “He bit an Angle Worm in halves / And ate the fellow, raw” (Lines 3-4). The “Angle Worm,” while affectionately referred to as a “fellow” by the speaker, is nevertheless lower on the natural hierarchy and serves as a good food source for the bird, who is its predator. In the second stanza, the bird has more symbiotic and equal interactions with elements of its environment, as it “drank a Dew / From a convenient Grass” (Lines 5-6), leaving the grass unharmed, and then behaves with almost human-like civility towards the beetle in clearing space on the walk for it: “And then hopped sidewise to the Wall / To let a Beetle pass” (Lines 7-8).
By Emily Dickinson
A Clock stopped—
A Clock stopped—
Emily Dickinson
A narrow Fellow in the Grass (1096)
A narrow Fellow in the Grass (1096)
Emily Dickinson
Because I Could Not Stop for Death
Because I Could Not Stop for Death
Emily Dickinson
"Faith" is a fine invention
"Faith" is a fine invention
Emily Dickinson
Fame Is a Fickle Food (1702)
Fame Is a Fickle Food (1702)
Emily Dickinson
Hope is a strange invention
Hope is a strange invention
Emily Dickinson
"Hope" Is the Thing with Feathers
"Hope" Is the Thing with Feathers
Emily Dickinson
I Can Wade Grief
I Can Wade Grief
Emily Dickinson
I Felt a Cleaving in my Mind
I Felt a Cleaving in my Mind
Emily Dickinson
I Felt a Funeral, in My Brain
I Felt a Funeral, in My Brain
Emily Dickinson
If I Can Stop One Heart from Breaking
If I Can Stop One Heart from Breaking
Emily Dickinson
If I should die
If I should die
Emily Dickinson
If you were coming in the fall
If you were coming in the fall
Emily Dickinson
I heard a Fly buzz — when I died
I heard a Fly buzz — when I died
Emily Dickinson
I'm Nobody! Who Are You?
I'm Nobody! Who Are You?
Emily Dickinson
Much Madness is divinest Sense—
Much Madness is divinest Sense—
Emily Dickinson
Success Is Counted Sweetest
Success Is Counted Sweetest
Emily Dickinson
Tell all the truth but tell it slant
Tell all the truth but tell it slant
Emily Dickinson
The Only News I Know
The Only News I Know
Emily Dickinson
There is no Frigate like a Book
There is no Frigate like a Book
Emily Dickinson