Audio: A Bird Came Down by Emily Dickinson

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A Bird Came Down
by Emily Dickinson

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featuring voice artist Tracey Kummrow

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.

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During her lifetime, only 10 of Emily's poems found their way into print, all anonymously. After her death, interest in her work resulted in the publication of 3 slim volumes of selections in the 1890s. It was not until 1955 that her entire corpus of 1,775 poems appeared.

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