Variations on a Bird and a Crumb

In bonus material from last week’s discussion of Emily Dickinson, here are several variations critic Helen Vendler points out in the encounter between the speaker and the bird. Who is acting cautious? Why? What changes in each reading for the speaker? For the reader? First the poem…
 
A Bird, came down the Walk – (359)
by Emily Dickinson
 
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, plashless as they swim.
 
Variations in Stanzas 3-4 of Poem #359 by Emily Dickinson
 
1.)    As sent to Thomas Wentworth Higginson:
 

He stirred his velvet head
 
Like one in danger, cautious.
I offered him a crumb
 
 
2.)   In a version kept by the poet:
 
 
He stirred his Velvet Head
 
Like One in danger, Cautious,
I offered him a Crumb
 
 
3.)   A fair copy inscribed in a fascicle:
 
 
He stirred his Velvet Head. –
 
Like one in danger, Cautious,
I offered him a Crumb
 
Here they are rendered as prose:

1.)    “He stirred his velvet head like one in danger, cautious. I offered him a Crumb”

2.)   “He stirred his Velvet Head like One in danger, Cautious, I offered him a Crumb”

3.)   “He stirred his Velvet Head. Like one in danger, Cautious, I offered him a Crumb”