"A Bird came down the Walk" is a short poem by

Emily Dickinson Emily Elizabeth Dickinson (December 10, 1830 – May 15, 1886) was an American poet. Little-known during her life, she has since been regarded as one of the most important figures in American poetry. Dickinson was born in Amherst, Massac ...

(1830–1886) that tells of the poet's encounter with a worm-eating bird. The poem was first published in 1891 in the second collection of Dickinson's poems.

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Helen Vendler regards the poem as a "bizarre little narrative" but one that typifies many of Dickinson's best qualities. She likens the poet to a reporter observing a murderer in the act, and later, pretending fear that the murderer may be dangerous to herself and must be mollified by a "crumb". The bird takes flight and Vendler regards what follows - the description of the bird in flight - as "the astonishing part of the poem". Vendler notes that the poem typifies Dickinson's "cool eye, her unsparing factuality, her startling similes and metaphors, her psychological observations of herself and others, her capacity for showing herself mistaken, and her exquisite relish of natural beauty".Helen Vendler. ''Dickinson: selected poems and commentaries''. Harvard University Press. pp. 157ff.

Harold Bloom Harold Bloom (July 11, 1930 – October 14, 2019) was an American literary critic and the Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University. In 2017, Bloom was described as "probably the most famous literary critic in the English-speaking worl ...

notes that the bird displays a "complex mix of qualities: ferocity, fastidiousness, courtesy, fear, and grace", and writes that the description of the bird's flight is that seen by the soul rather than the "finite eyes".Harold Bloom. ''Emily Dickinson''. Infobase Publishing. pp. 34ff. Vendler observes that Dickinson wrote two versions of the middle portion of the poem. The version she sent to her literary mentor

Thomas Wentworth Higginson Thomas Wentworth Higginson (December 22, 1823May 9, 1911) was an American Unitarian minister, author, abolitionist, politician, and soldier. He was active in the American Abolitionism movement during the 1840s and 1850s, identifying himself with ...

has no punctuation after "Head" and a period after the word "Cautious". In Dickinson's personal copy, there is a comma (not a period) after "Cautious". In the first version then, the bird is cautious, but in the second version, it is the poet who is cautious. In the fair copy, both a period and a dash follow "Head", and a comma follows "Cautious". The fair copy version is the one usually printed, and, as Vendler notes, this version accords with Dickinson's comic sense.

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Bird came down the Walk, A American poems Poetry by Emily Dickinson 1891 poems Poems published posthumously

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