Summary:

A Bird Came Down the Walk is an extremely famous sonnet by Emily Dickinson. It focuses on a bird, a small animal. She describes the bird as it enters the garden, but the way she uses language makes the poem memorable. The poem focuses on the gap that exists between man's and nature's worlds., by including additional questions about struggle and fear, it further develops the theme of nature's indifference.

Stanza I depicts a bird on its usual land walk arriving. The speaker, who was paying close attention to the bird, was invisible. The bird cut the angleworm in equal parts and began eating it crudely. It is completely natural and extremely hostile toward the worm it eats.

Stanza II demonstrates that the bird drank the readily available dew on the grass blades to quench its thirst. The beetle was able to cross the fence without the bird's assistance as it abruptly jumped to the wall. It is pleasantly unconcerned with the insect. This deadly demonstration refines the little animal and spots it in a minor creature world. The speaker is savoring her mystery spying and this produces lamentable pressures in this present circumstance. In stanza 2, his sudden polite behavior toward the beetle conceals the struggle for survival that is shown among nature's creatures in the first stanza.

Stanza III shows that the bird was in a panic and looked around quickly. The bird's eyes appeared to be "frightened beads" that were scurrying about in the grass. The poet got closer to it as he observed it moving its velvet head. The speaker praises the beauty of the bird under stress, which is implied by the metaphors of its eyes being like beads and its head being like velvet. The natural habitat is being attacked. The speaker's intervention amplifies the bird's sense of danger and fear. The bird finally flies off, afraid. The speaker's attempt to reconcile with nature ultimately fails.

Stanza IV demonstrates that the speaker is moved by the bird's plight. In order to calm its fear of being cornered, he provides it with crumbs. The bird is about to flee, putting the speaker in danger.

Stanza V depicts the bird's wing movement, which can be compared to oars rowing through the seamless ether to bring something home. In the end, the speaker's final attempt to identify with the bird fails. The bird takes off into the airy ocean, where everything in creation flows seamlessly. The speaker is distant from other people and things. paddling on the sea and viewing the butterflies as swimming.

The final lines depict the butterflies majestically leaping from the scorching sands of the sun into the liquid coolness of the sky. They depict a world of exquisite beauty.

Critical Analysis and Interpretation:

The theme of "A Bird Came Down the Walk" is man's separation from nature. The worlds of man and nature cannot always be friendly to one another. Since the winged creatures feel safe and secure in their own world, they prefer to live there, but nature does not trust humans because they can harm it for their own benefit. The bird finds meaning in the speaker's spying and motivated offer of a crumb, which the bird ultimately rejects. The bird overlooks his charitable act because it doubts his intentions.

Suggestive Images:

The theme of "A Bird Came Down the Walk" is man's separation from nature. The worlds of man and nature cannot always be friendly to one another. Because they feel safe and secure there, the winged creatures prefer to live in their own world. Nature can't believe a man can hurt it for his self-centered purposes. The bird finds meaning in the speaker's spying and motivated offer of a crumb, which the bird ultimately rejects. The bird overlooks his charitable act because it doubts his intentions.

The initial two refrains are loaded with exact beautiful detail. The final lines, with their evocative images of seamless beauty and the numerous lower-register vowel sounds ('Rowed, 'Softer, 'Oars, 'Ocean, 'Butterflies, 'Noon,') depict the presence of humans as an intruder in the perfect peace of nature. Even if humans imagine such a realm, they are unable to enter it.

Art:

The sonnet's short trimeter line, differed by one tetrameter line in every refrain, is a reasonable counterpart for the unexpected and unpredictable developments of a bird that is jumping along the ground. The poem, which is primarily written in iambic rhythm, conveys its easy tone in part through subtle metrical variation, primarily through accent reversals, and in part through the cacophony, imitating the bird's seamless integration with nature. In stanzas three and four, the use of run-on lines, slight changes in meter, and approximate rhymes break the exact pattern of the opening and amplify the sense of danger and fear. The capitalization of 'Scrap' and its end-rhyme position further complement the absence of understanding between man and nature. The illusions of the sky-sea and bird-boat give the impression of eternal peace.

Tone:

The observer laughs at the bird's fear of a beetle and mistrust of the crumb she offers, which is the surface tone, which is humorous and wryly ironic. However, the final tone is one of awe and appreciation for the bird's stunning flight. Even the way the bird eats the worm makes people laugh in a funny way.

Theme:

The bird's final rejection is the result of man's spying and point to another theme: nature's superior self-sufficiency over man's awkwardness.