Emily Dickinson

For every bird a nest,

For every bird a nest,
Wherefore in timid quest
Some little wren goes seeking round.
Wherefore where boughs are free,
Households in every tree,

Pilgrim be found

Inverted syntax—she means 'Why is the pilgrim wren found searching?' The biblical word 'pilgrim' elevates the wren's homelessness into spiritual seeking.

Pilgrim be found?
Perhaps a home too high—
Ah, aristocracy!—

Ah, aristocracy!

The exclamation marks this as ironic—the wren's ambition for a high nest becomes social climbing. Dickinson frequently mocked New England class consciousness.

The little wren desires.

not ashamed

Shame requires an audience. The lark builds on the ground without caring what others think—the opposite of the status-conscious wren.

The lark is not ashamed
To build upon the ground
Her modest house.
Yet who of all the throng
Dancing around the sun

Dancing around the sun

The lark's ground nest doesn't stop her from soaring. The wren seeks height in architecture; the lark finds it in flight.

Does so rejoice?

Rhetorical question with an obvious answer—the humble lark rejoices most. The wren is still searching while the lark is dancing.

Does so rejoice?
Source Wikipedia Poetry Foundation

Reading Notes

The Wren's Social Climbing

Dickinson uses wherefore (meaning 'why') not 'where'—the question isn't about location but motivation. Why does the wren keep searching when nests are everywhere? The answer arrives in stanza three: she wants a home too high, a nest above her station.

The poem's bird symbolism follows actual behavior. Wrens do build in cavities and elevated spots, while larks are ground-nesters. But Dickinson weaponizes these facts into a parable about ambition. The wren becomes a pilgrim, a word loaded with religious seeking, but her pilgrimage is for aristocracy—social position, not salvation.

The irony sharpens when you notice what the lark gains by accepting her modest ground plot: she's the one dancing around the sun, rejoicing most of all. The wren seeks height through real estate; the lark achieves it through joy. Dickinson herself lived in her father's house her whole life, writing poems in an upstairs bedroom—perhaps she knew something about finding elevation without leaving the ground.

The poem's exact repetition (the first and last twelve lines are identical) creates a trap. We return to the wren still seeking, still a pilgrim, having learned nothing. The structure suggests this is a permanent condition—ambition as endless, joyless quest.

Dickinson's Question Technique

Five of the poem's six stanzas end with questions, but only one expects an answer. 'Does so rejoice?' is rhetorical—obviously the lark rejoices most. The others ('Pilgrim be found?' 'The little wren desires?') use question marks to create uncertainty, not to request information.

This matches Dickinson's broader method: she poses questions to suspend judgment, letting readers draw conclusions. She doesn't say 'The wren is foolish'—she asks why the wren keeps searching and lets the lark's joy provide the answer. The technique feels less like moralizing, more like observation.

Notice the poem never condemns the wren directly. 'Perhaps' is tentative, and even 'Ah, aristocracy!' could be sympathy as much as mockery. Dickinson leaves room for the possibility that the wren's desires are understandable, even if they prevent her from settling into the happiness available right now.