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For a Poetry Monday:
"I like to see it lap the Miles," Emily Dickinson
I like to see it lap the Miles—
And lick the Valleys up—
And stop to feed itself at Tanks
And then—prodigious step
Around a Pile of Mountains—
And supercilious peer
In Shanties—by the sides of Roads—
And then a Quarry pare
To fit its sides and crawl between
Complaining all the while
In horrid—hooting stanza—
Then chase itself down Hill—
And neigh like Boanerges—
Then—prompter than a Star
Stop—docile and omnipotent
At its own stable door—
A riddle poem, probably intended for children (she liked to write poems for neighbor children) -- the answer being, of course, a train with a steam engine. Dickinson's father was instrumental in bringing the railroad to Amherst, and the station was not far from the family house.
---L.
Subject quote from "A Boy's Poem," Alexander Smith.
"I like to see it lap the Miles," Emily Dickinson
I like to see it lap the Miles—
And lick the Valleys up—
And stop to feed itself at Tanks
And then—prodigious step
Around a Pile of Mountains—
And supercilious peer
In Shanties—by the sides of Roads—
And then a Quarry pare
To fit its sides and crawl between
Complaining all the while
In horrid—hooting stanza—
Then chase itself down Hill—
And neigh like Boanerges—
Then—prompter than a Star
Stop—docile and omnipotent
At its own stable door—
A riddle poem, probably intended for children (she liked to write poems for neighbor children) -- the answer being, of course, a train with a steam engine. Dickinson's father was instrumental in bringing the railroad to Amherst, and the station was not far from the family house.
---L.
Subject quote from "A Boy's Poem," Alexander Smith.