"A Bird Came Down" by Emily Dickinson, is a poem that I believe to be focused towards the nature side of Thoreau and Emerson. I know that the remaining few pieces of work we are to read are based on Realism writing and the Realism period but I do not see it this way. I do not get the sense of Mark Twain or Henry James in this poem. The style of writing is just so much different. They focused on the period after the Civil War and wrote accurate ficticious material concerning American life(Campbell). There really is no other point of origin for this story because it is just about a bird walking around eating worms and watching beetles. The description of the bird is given to us and even though a person may seem certain birds to be ugly or undesirable, Emily Dickinson makes the bird seem beautiful.
"He glanced with rapid eyes
That hurried all abroad,--
They looked like frightened beads, I thought;
He stirred his velvet head"(Dickinson Stanza 3)
The third stanza shows the qualities of the bird and certain characteristics about him. He almost seems to be nervous or frightened as Dickinson says. His "velvet head" gives him a quality of beauty and makes the reader imagine something smooth and soft. "If you are ready to leave father and mother, and brother and sister, and wife and child and friends, and never see them again, --if you have paid your debts, and made your will, and settled all your affairs, and are a free man, then you are ready for a walk"(Thoreau "Ideas.."). This was said by Thoreau and this shows how fond he is of nature. He thinks that if you can leave the rest of your life behind to go for a walk then you should. Emerson followed the same line of thinking. "In the instant you leave far behind all human relations, wife, mother and child, and live only with the savages—-water, air, light, carbon, lime, and granite. Nature grows over me. Frogs pipe; waters far off tinkle; dry leaves hiss; grass bends and rustles, and I have died out of the human world and come to feel a strange, cold, aqueous, terraqueous, aerial, ethereal sympathy and existence"(Emerson "Ideas.."). This poem is describing what Thoreau and Emerson love to do. The narrator is just watching this bird in his natural environment. The narrator is observing the bird and enjoying nature. They do not disturb the bird, other than when to offer him bread crumbs. This is what nature is all about. Watching and listening to the amazing sights and sounds that nature has to offer. No matter where you live there is some nature to enjoy. I know that this is what Emerson and Thoreau believed because of the research I have had to accomplish for this project.
Dickinson, Emily. "Emily Dickinson." PoemHunter. 14 May 2001. Web. 12 Mar. 2012
"Ideas--Philosophy of Nature." Virginia Commonwealth University. Web. 12 Mar. 2012
"He glanced with rapid eyes
That hurried all abroad,--
They looked like frightened beads, I thought;
He stirred his velvet head"(Dickinson Stanza 3)
The third stanza shows the qualities of the bird and certain characteristics about him. He almost seems to be nervous or frightened as Dickinson says. His "velvet head" gives him a quality of beauty and makes the reader imagine something smooth and soft. "If you are ready to leave father and mother, and brother and sister, and wife and child and friends, and never see them again, --if you have paid your debts, and made your will, and settled all your affairs, and are a free man, then you are ready for a walk"(Thoreau "Ideas.."). This was said by Thoreau and this shows how fond he is of nature. He thinks that if you can leave the rest of your life behind to go for a walk then you should. Emerson followed the same line of thinking. "In the instant you leave far behind all human relations, wife, mother and child, and live only with the savages—-water, air, light, carbon, lime, and granite. Nature grows over me. Frogs pipe; waters far off tinkle; dry leaves hiss; grass bends and rustles, and I have died out of the human world and come to feel a strange, cold, aqueous, terraqueous, aerial, ethereal sympathy and existence"(Emerson "Ideas.."). This poem is describing what Thoreau and Emerson love to do. The narrator is just watching this bird in his natural environment. The narrator is observing the bird and enjoying nature. They do not disturb the bird, other than when to offer him bread crumbs. This is what nature is all about. Watching and listening to the amazing sights and sounds that nature has to offer. No matter where you live there is some nature to enjoy. I know that this is what Emerson and Thoreau believed because of the research I have had to accomplish for this project.
Campbell, Donna M. "Realism in American Literature, 1860-1890." Literary Movements. Dept. of English, Washington State University. Web. March 12 2012.
Dickinson, Emily. "Emily Dickinson." PoemHunter. 14 May 2001. Web. 12 Mar. 2012
"Ideas--Philosophy of Nature." Virginia Commonwealth University. Web. 12 Mar. 2012
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