Stanza 1 Summary

Lines 1-2

 I know what the caged bird feels, alas!
When the sun is bright on the upland slopes; 

• The speaker of this poem starts us off by telling us that he knows what the "caged bird" feels. Considering that this is a caged bird—as in, it can't fly off and hop from one branch to another—it's a safe bet that this isn't a happy birdie (and, well, neither is the speaker).
• The second line gives us a picture of a beautiful landscape: the sun's shining "bright" on slopes and hills. The thing is, our little birdie presumably doesn't have access to this beautiful landscape, since, you know, he's in a cage. So, in these first couple of lines we already begin to understand how the bird suffers from being stuck.

Lines 3-4

 When the wind stirs soft through the springing grass,
 And the river flows like a stream of glass;

• In these lines, we get more beautiful landscape imagery: a breeze stirring the grass and the river flowing like glass (that's a simile if you're scoring at home).
• The speaker emphasizes all the wonderful things that the bird is missing out on. If it's in a cage, our little birdie can't enjoy flying on that beautiful breeze, or drinking from that flowing river.
• We can also see a lot of consonance in these lines, especially in the repetition of the letter S. Just try saying these lines out loud: "When the wind stirs soft through the springing grass/ And the river flows like a stream of grass."
• Hear those soft sounds sliding forth?
• This sound play isn't just there to make these lines sound pretty. It's serving a purpose. If we imagine the wind stirring, it makes this "sss" sound, doesn't it? And so does water flowing in a river. Check out "Sound Check" for more on this technique.

Lines 5-7

When the first bird sings and the first bud opes,
 And the faint perfume from its chalice steals—
 I know what the caged bird feels!

• We get more of what our poor little caged birdie is missing out on here. For starters, it can't hang out with the "first bird" singing. And it can't fly off to smell the beautiful perfume coming from an opening flower bud ("the first opes").
• The speaker uses a metaphor here, when he says that the "faint perfume" of the flower "steals" (in this case, that basically means "creeps") from "its chalice." A chalice is a cup used for drinking wine. Here, the speaker refers to the flower as a "chalice," or a wine cup, from which comes a beautiful smell. All in all, it sounds like a fancy, blissful experience… that our bird is denied.
• By repeating again "I know what the caged bird feels!" at the end of this stanza, the speaker again emphasizes his own identification with the bird's sadness. He knows what the bird feels, which is his way of telling us that he's really sad too. (We're just assuming our speaker's a he at this point. For more on that, check out "Speaker.") Since this bird is caged, we can assume that his own feelings stem from the fact that, like the bird, he isn't free.
• Now that we've read through the whole stanza, we can breakdown its rhyme scheme. It works out to ABAABCC, where each letter stands for that line's end rhyme. For more on that good stuff, check out "Form and Meter."