A Bird came down the Walk (Benavides/Dickinson) Score FULL CHOIR LICENSE (PDF) for SSAA Choir (2011)

A Bird came down the Walk (328)

Emily Dickinson

A Bird came down the Walk - 
He did not know I saw -
He bit an Angleworm 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, plashless as they swim. 

Program Notes for A bird came down the walk
(written in 2023)

A bird came down the walk holds a special place in my heart. Featuring the poetry of Emily Dickinson, it emulates some of the choral music I was singing in undergrad at Santa Clara University with dramatic shifts of mood, fractured text setting, and ornaments that land on glittering pandiatonic clusters. Originally premiered by San Francisco’s Musae, at the time led by Ryan Brandau, it is the first professional commission I ever received as a budding composer. Like most American children, I was introduced to Emily Dickinson’s poetry through an English class in high school. When it was time to memorize poetry, I chose Emily Dickinson because her mysterious life intrigued me almost as much as her beautiful prose. Being from New Mexico, few things felt more foreign to me than 19th century New England, but her quietly rebellious nature stood out to me. Before I ever started working with living poets and librettists, I would draw on poems that I had memorized years before. It’s simple in premise: the speaker is watching a bird, which eats a worm, drinks dew and hops out of the way of a beetle. She offers a crumb, but it takes to the skies and disappears, rowing himself softer home, as though he were a boat in the ocean. Hearing this piece reminds me of being in undergrad, with all the time in the world to sit in a park, enjoy watching wildlife, and let my imagination run wild.

-        Nicolás Lell Benavides