If I Can Stop One Heart from Breaking

Birds in Dickinson’s poems represent everything from artistic voice to spiritual transcendence to physical freedom. In “If I Can Stop One Heart from Breaking,” the robin, in its moment of need, provides the speaker with evidence of grace necessary for her salvation. Whether that salvation is spiritual or secular is not specified by the speaker. Dickinson’s love for and understanding of nature makes the gesture of restoring a bird to its nest a worthwhile effort on a practical, physical level. But reading the bird as a symbol of a fallen person, strayed from their personal path or from faith, endows the speaker with a bigger task and responsibility. Nests are also featured in other Dickinson poems such as “For Every Bird a Nest,” where a wren may be aspiring beyond her scope by seeking too high a bough, signifying “aristocracy.” The lark, meanwhile, builds her house on the ground without shame. If the robin in “If I Can Stop One Heart from Breaking” has fallen, perhaps its nest had been too high, and the speaker of the poem can ease its heartbreak and help restore its faith.