![]() ![]() ![]() “I like to see it lap the Miles –“ highlights Dickinson’s taste for riddles-they recur almost constantly in her poems. Finally, it punctually stops at its resting place (“punctual as a Star”), and becomes completely quiet, although it is still powerful (“docile and omnipotent / At its own stable door –“). When it must “crawl” more slowly through a tight space, she imagines its sounds (“In horrid – hooting stanza –“) are those of “Complaining.” Its sounds are prouder, louder (“And neigh like Boanerges –“), when it can move faster (“chase itself down Hill –“). So too can it cut into a quarry as if it were a fruit (“And then a Quarry pare”) so that there is room for the tracks (“To fit its Ribs”). Its size and might are such that it can take a giant (“prodigious”) “step / Around a Pile of Mountains –.” Because of its pride in its own great power and speed, it looks in arrogantly when it passes shacks (“And supercilious peer / In Shanties”) that are along the road (“by the sides of Roads –“). ![]() She imagines it feeding itself at tanks-ostensibly, either filling with new passengers at train stations, or being refueled (“And stop to feed itself at Tanks –“). The speaker enjoys watching this train traveling through the country (“I like to see it lap the Miles –“), imagining it as a kind of giant horse figure, going fast and far and licking up the country side (“And lick the Valleys up –“). This poem, although the subject is never named explicitly, only referred to as “it,” is about a train. ![]()
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