Poem by Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

In the Garden

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.

1. There Is a Shame of Nobleness
2. The Battle-Field
3. A Country Burial
4. Vanished
5. Precedence

Constance Naden In the Garden ("SWEET sounds, and scents, and colours join to woo")

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