Explication of "i like to See It Lap the Miles"

Explication of “I like to see it lap the Miles”

“I like to see it lap the Miles” by Emily Dickinson is a short riddle-like allegorical poem that uses figurative language and auditory-based devices to compare two different forms of transportation that became important during the Romantic Era in which she lived. The powerful imagery within the poem helps to guide the reader to see exactly what Dickinson saw as she wrote this - a powerful machine that tore through towns like a nonstop horse, only halting in order to fill itself again. Though this poem is filled with a series of figurative language, it can mostly focus on personification and a very blatant metaphor.

The comparison between the machine - a train - and the horse is interesting because it is unusual within itself. Both are known for being fast and swift, though the connecting factor is that just like a train only stops to pick people up, drop them off, and to refuel, a moving horse, especially used in travel only stops to refuel itself, before being off again. The poem describes this metaphorical “horse” as “lap[ping] the Miles” (Dickinson 1), never being late on its initial purpose of going. It is also described “punctual as a Star” (14) which points to its quickness and efficiency. The insinuation of this is that the train can easily transport not only people but merchandise, which before the invention of locomotives were intended for the horses. The train is foreign to Dickinson, and it seems like the only way she could express this amazing new creation was to compare it to the thing that she knew extremely well, thus making this the driving metaphor throughout the entire poem.

Dickinson intended this Industrial Revolution directed poem to draw a sort of pleasure from figuring out the true subject of the poem. She never actually directly states the main subject, which increases the ambiguity of the poem; the real subject of the riddle is actually found through the actions that are described such as the first three lines of the poem “I like to see it lap the Miles - And lick the Valleys up - And stop to feed itself at Tanks -” (1-3). When I read these lines, I immediately thought of a train, which made it very gratifying to find out I was right. The disambiguation of the train being an “iron horse” is extremely interesting because it connects Dickinson’s overall metaphor of the original working horse to its replacement.

The whole poem is full of ambiguity from the beginning starting with the first word. It starts with an unidentified “I”, who is an unknown speaker, then goes into the subject of the entire riddle - “it” (1). This is also unidentified and immediately