What is this poem trying to say?

Question

I can't really figure out what the theme or subject is because I'm not good with symbolism. What do you think?

A Bird Came Down the Walk by Emily Dickinson

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, splashless, as they swim.

Answer 1

I see there are many interpretations. I believe that there's more going on here than is mentioned even in the academic links that were posted.

In the first two stanzas it's as if the bird is not just a bird. Otherwise, why the implicit comparisons between the bird's behavior and a man's? Usually it's people who come down walks. Usually it's people who step aside to let someone pass. And why mention that he ate the worm "raw" unless you're thinking of human behavior. Birds don't cook.

So the bird is a stand-in for a man. Knowing what we know about Dickinson, that she was a spinster who had a long and ultimately unsatisfying relationship with a man, it's easy to see in these stanzas her fascination with the behavior of men, which she apparently sees as being only partially civilized.

In the third stanza and the first line of the fourth, he is showing caution and fear. This sounds like caution about the relationship that Dickinson would like to have.

So what does she do? She offers him a crumb. It's not very obvious whether or not he accepts it. Some interpreters say that the bird flies away without taking the crumb. I disagree.

The last six lines are to me a most extraordinarily beautiful description of something. Transcendently beautiful and strange.

But what's being described? It's not the bird flying away, or why use the word "home"?

I think the most reasonable interpretation is that she's describing a sexual encounter with the one who clearly accepted her "crumb." It could be real, it could be imagined, so don't argue that Dickinson never had that kind of relationship. But I do think that's what the poem is really about.

By the way, the word in the last line should be "plashless," not "splashless."

Answer 2

She suffered from a severe depression that eventually took her life by suicide. She almost always includes symbols of death and alienation. The bird killed and ate a worm - a living being. She offered an apparently hungry predator a crust of bread - dead wheat. It refused her sacrifice. In this poem death rejects her leaving her alone. Death is a release of pain for Dickinson and it disturbed her to imagine that death would fail to deliver her and end her pain. Such was her own hell. Yet, she came so close to death at several points in her life that she felt her ability to dream of it would come to an end and sadden her into the darkness on the other side.

That's my opinion ... I'm probably wrong.

Answer 3

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.

Answer 4

It talks about how people are worried about their own lives and don't realize the nature beauty that lies around them. With all the violence that occurs in the world, the bird looks around to make sure that a predator isn't around. when the bird steps out of the way of the beetle, the bird gazes at the beetle much like what we do for those around us. we live sheltered lives and are unaware of our surrounds. this is the point of the poem

Answer 5

i saw a bird
he didn't see me
the bird ate a worm
the bird drank some dew from the grass
the bird looked around, like he was frightened
i offered the bird a crumb of food
the bird flew away
he flew away "soft[ly]"
like oars in water when they don't splash but are placed into the water gently, softly
like butterflies flying

the bird
oars
butterfly
all
swim...w/out splashing...or being disruptive of the
water...air...moment

http://www.sparknotes.com/poetry/dickinson/section5.rhtml

when humans interfere wthe order of nature,
it gets destroyed...
http://www.planetpapers.com/Assets/1521.php

metaphors in the poem
described...
http://edsitement.neh.gov/view_lesson_plan.asp?id=604

Answer 6

It's not really saying much. It doesn't have a underlying theme to it. She was just watching a bird and just observed what he did. This come from where she wrote most of her poems, in her room when she refused to come out of her house. (EmilyD.) I don't like her poetry.LOL

Answer 7

I see how the preditor is the prey-the cycle of life.

Answer 8

well it means enjoy life and keep up your daily routine.do what you like and help people that need it. thats what it means. i hope that anseers your question

Answer 9

I just want to say good luck to you.

Answer 10

cool poem i like it