A Bird Came Down The Walk By Emily Dickinson

1887 Words4 Pages

Emily Dickinson was an American poet in the 19th century and is still one of the most influential American poets to this day. Although not famous in her time, today many people look up to Dickinson's masterpieces and even tattoos of some of the quotes. Emily Dickinson’s writings have many characteristics that analysts have tried to interpret including the abundance of end dashes and the extent of bird references in her works. Three of the hundreds of poems that Emily Dickinson that talks about birds or contain bird references are “A Bird came down the Walk," “These are the days when Birds come back” and “‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers." These three poems fully express the striking ways Emily Dickinson refers to birds in her poetry. Emily …show more content…

In “A Bird came down the Walk,” the narrator is observing a bird in what sounds like the narrator’s front yard. At the beginning of the poem, the narrator personifies the little bird. For the other half of the poem, this is not the case. After the narrator attempts to feed the bird, the bird gets scared and flies away. The reader can see the bird in distress because Dickinson uses words like frightened, cautious, and danger which is different from the wording in the first half of the poem. Many people only recognize the blissfulness of nature without acknowledging the atrocious …show more content…

In this poem, Dickinson writes about a little bird that, “sings the tune without the words” (Dickinson, “‘Hope’ Is the Thing with Feathers”). The little bird keeps sharing its song with the world no matter what comes in its way. According to “Overview: “‘ Hope’ Is the Thing with Feathers’”, edited by Marie Rose Napierkowski and Mary Ruby, “By describing ‘hope’ in terms of this bird, Dickinson creates a lovely image of the virtue of human desire” (“Overview: “‘ Hope’ Is the Thing with Feathers’”). Birds are very common in human nature so many of the readers so not see how special each bird is, but Emily Dickinson likes to change people's point of views of the little birds to show how strong and relatable these feathered friends really

Open Document