A Bird Came Down the Walk

by Emily Dickinson

Also referred to as In the Garden, Dickinson's poem is a vivid account of a bird eating a worm. It's typically taught in fourth or fifth grade, reminding students they don't necessarily need to travel far in order to find drama and compose great poetry. A Bird Came Down the Walk offers Dickinson's typical rhyme scheme: iambic trimeter.

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.

A Bird Came Down the Walk was featured as The Short Story of the Day on Tue, May 16, 2023

Featured in our collection of Children's Poems

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