In "The Sparrow," Paul Laurence Dunbar uses two stanzas with strong formal similarities to create a comparison between a concrete situation and abstract ideas. The stanzas are very similar in length, structure, rhythm, and rhyme. The first stanza offers a specific occurrence, in which a bird came to the window but the speaker ignored its song. The second stanza generalizes about birds that represent concepts such as peace, and the speaker notes that people generally ignore these messages.

Each stanza is eight lines long and features four rhymed couplets. None of the rhymes of stanza 1 are repeated in stanza 2, giving an overall rhyme scheme of AABBCCDD EEFFGGHH. Both stanzas also use the same rhythm or meter: iambic tetrameter. An “iamb” is a unit of one unstressed and one stressed syllable; “tetra” means four, indicating that each line has four units. The regularity of using four and eight in line length, rhyme, and rhythm gives the poem a strongly unified effect.

The poet aims for simplicity both in language and message. Throughout the poem, words of one or two syllables predominate. The only three-syllable word, “fluttering” in Stanza 2, is not jarring because it is a form of “flutters” in stanza 1. The poet uses parallels to emphasize the poem’s meaning. In stanza 1, one “little bird” tries to attract the notice of the speaker, who speaks in first-person singular: “my window,” “I work on.” In stanza 2, the poet generalizes about numerous birds that symbolize different qualities: “birds of peace and hope and love,” and the speaker uses first-person plural, giving the impression of a general situation: “our load,” “we ... plod on.”