A bird came down the walk; | Affiliated Manuscripts

(Fr359[A])

ca. 1862, August

Original MS lost or destroyed | The Atlantic Monthly

Poem enclosed in a message to T. W. Higginson.

Original manuscript lost or destroyed

“A BIRD CAME DOWN THE WALK”

 

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 walk
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.

 

 

           EMILY DICKINSON

Recipient

Thomas Wentworth Higginson (b. 1823–d. 1911)

Writer, critic, social activist, friend; with the exception of Susan Gilbert Dickinson, Higginson is Dickinson’s most constant correspondent.

Inclusive dates of correspondence: April 1862-May 1886. Letters: 70; poems: 103.

Address: 16 Harvard Street, Worcester, Mass.

Distance Travelled: 37 miles