Freeverse
Public-domain poetry, pleasantly readable
Non omnis moriar

A bird came down the walk:

by Emily Dickinson · Explore poems

  1. A bird came down the walk:
  2. He did not know I saw;
  3. He bit an angle-worm in halves
  4. And ate the fellow, raw.
  5.  
  6. And then he drank a dew
  7. From a convenient grass,
  8. And then hopped sidewise to the wall
  9. To let a beetle pass.
  10.  
  11. He glanced with rapid eyes
  12. That hurried all abroad, --
  13. They looked like frightened beads, I thought;
  14. He stirred his velvet head
  15.  
  16. Like one in danger; cautious,
  17. I offered him a crumb,
  18. And he unrolled his feathers
  19. And rowed him softer home
  20.  
  21. Than oars divide the ocean,
  22. Too silver for a seam,
  23. Or butterflies, off banks of noon,
  24. Leap, splashless, as they swim.

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