A Bird Came Down

by EMILY DICKINSON (1830-1886)

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.

During her lifetime, only 10 of Emily Dickinson’s poems found their way into print, all anonymously. After her death, interest in her work resulted in the publication of 3 slim volumes of selections in the 1890s. It was not until 1955 that her entire corpus of 1,775 poems appeared.

Emily Dickinson Contemporaries
Christina Rossetti
Lewis Carroll
Phoebe Cary
Henry S. Leigh