The poem ‘A bird came down the walk ‘ brings a simple and common incident into notice but it conveys a serious message. Do you agree ? Discuss the answer taking examples from the poem.
The poem ‘ A bird came down the walk ‘ was written by the reputed American poetess Emily Dickinson. In this poem, she deals with a very common and simple matter how a bird fetches its food but with this simple incident, it appears that the poetess wants to peep into the serious matter how nature has been threatened by man or other elements. The whole poem consists of five stanzas, including four lines in each stanza with regular rhyming.
According to the incident the poetess brings, the narrator watches the behaviour of the bird in secret. The bird hunts down an angle – worm and eats it raw. Then, it drinks dew from the grass and retires towards a wall. It also comes across a beetle but it does not make any effort to kill it. The bird, it appears is always excited expecting any danger to its life so it hurries to a safer place. The narrator offers it a bread crumb but it does not show any interest in it. Instead, it unrolls its feathers and gets away.
In this incident, the most significant thing is how the poetess presents the natural behaviour of a bird. The birds often claim the sky flying higher and higher freely but the poetess takes the example of ‘a ground bird’ which hops around fetching its food. The whole process of its behaviour is confined to its natural environment. It catches its prey within its environment and quenches its thirst drinking some dew. Here, the poetess vividly presents how nature itself helps others to survive themselves within their environment.
In this simple incident, the poetess emphasizes that the nature is independent and self-sufficient. The bird could find its food and water within its immediate environment and when once it is contented, it requires no more food or drink. It also comes across a beetle but it does not draw any attention to it.
With this incident, the poetess has been able to present the visual imagery of a bird, how it hops and pecks at the worm, and how it bites it into halves and eats it with much appetite. It drinks dew from a convenient grass – that means the grass it finds from its immediate environment.
The rest of the incident reveals more facts about the relationship between nature and man.
In the third stanza of the poem, the poetess deals with another aspect of nature. The dependents of nature, although they are able to find out what they need from nature, they suffer from constant fear and suspicion whether they would become the victims of another force. Apart from man, they can find their ‘enemies’ from their immediate environment.
” He glanced with rapid eyes
That hurried all abroad
They looked like frightened beads, I thought :
He stirred his velvet head.”
Here, the poetess visualizes the ‘ mental agitation ‘ of the bird. Although it has contented its hunger and thirst using the resources provided by nature, it is not quite contented with its environment. It killed the worm for its food. At any moment, it could be the prey of another force. The bird turns its eyes round with much alertness that it would have to face any danger. The poetess uses the phrases such as ‘rapid eyes’ and the simile, ‘like frightened beads to establish its fear and suspicion that it has been endowed by nature. In the mean while, it stirs its velvet head.
” Like one in danger, cautious ”
This is the nature of the environment. It really reminds us the ‘ Jungle Law ‘ , ‘ Survival of the fittest ‘ – the strongest will only survive. Although the bird is free in its environment, it is always cautious of a possible danger. It has to be constantly vigilant about its own safety. This vigilance is portrayed with the words, ‘ glanced with rapid eyes ‘, ‘ hurried ‘, ‘ frightened ‘, ‘ stirred ‘, ‘ danger ‘, ‘ cautious ‘ etc.
In the next moment, the poetess presents how man interferes with nature. Man admires nature and he is also a part of nature. But, sometimes his behaviour stands as a threat to nature.
” I offered him a crumb,
and he unrolled his feathers
And rowed him softer home.”
The narrator offers it a bread crumb. But, the bird is so vigilant that it appears that the bird does not take him as ‘ a friend ‘ of it. It takes it as a possible danger and hurriedly withdraws from the danger. It immediately withdraws to its safety home.
Sometimes, we hear about man’s love towards animals. The garden – birds are fed with bread crumbs, grains etc. In such occasions, birds become quite familiar with the association with man so that they both live in consensus. If man is rude to them, they would not response positively.
But in this incident, the poetess does not mention about such friendly environment. The poetess begins the poem making herself absent from the view of the bird.
” He did not know I saw; ”
With this statement, the poetess emphasizes the idea that in this environment, man and bird are not close to each other. The bird refuses the bread crumb perhaps because it is something ‘strange’ to it and it does not belong to nature.
In the whole poem, it is quite significant that the poetess is in a constant effort to promote fear and suspense. In the third stanza of the poem, this nature of the bird is presented. Here, the bird’s behaviour is described as one with much excitement and alertness. Nature has endowed it with this kind of nature for its own survival and safety. They have been endowed with suspicion, fear and doubt of any danger or a rival force that they would encounter with at any moment. The simple incident in the poem tells us the bird as a predator, caught its prey the angle worm and in the next moment the bird might have become the victim of another type of predator. It is a universal fact where nature is concerned. The poetess vividly presents it in the third stanza.
As the main idea or the theme of the poem, the poetess has been able to convey a valuable message. First, she talks about the self-sufficiency of nature. The elements of nature depend on each other. They own or can find sufficient resources from their own environment for their survival. Man should not interfere with it as he has parted from nature. The ‘angle worm’ symbolically represents the resources provided by nature and on the contrary, ‘the crumb’ represents the man made things. The bird refuses it because already nature has hosted it so that it is quite contented with the flesh of the worm and the dew.
On the other hand, the poetess also highlights the fact that nature has given its dependents the quality of living in fear and suspense for their own survival. The bird catches the worm as a predator but in the next time, it could be caught by another predator for its food. So, the bird is always alert and vigilant of a possible or imminent danger for its life. So, it glances round with ‘rapid eyes’ and stirs its velvet head constantly.
Finally, it is quite evident that in this poem the poetess deals with a simple matter but
coincides man and nature. Man is also a part of nature so that he also bears the in born instinct to live with nature and admire the resources of nature. The narrator very keenly watches how the bird behaves. But today, a serious gap has been developed between nature and man mainly due to his modern life. Perhaps, with growing fear and suspicion of the ‘ vicious ‘environment, the bird would have refused the ‘ bread crumb ‘.