The Train

I like to see it lap the miles,
And lick the valleys up,
And stop to feed itself at tanks;
And then, prodigious, step

By Emily Dickinson





The poem is brilliant. The description of the train is inspiring and incredibly creative. Dickinson ability to engulf the reader is so dominant and ensuring. Though it takes a coupling of readings to understand the full context of the poem and the emphases placed through brilliance and inception. It is very captive and entraining to read.

Throughout this poem Emily Dickinson cleverly depicts the life of a train with the use of personification. The used of personification throughout her poem portrays the train performing humanlike behaviors to illustrates the trains motions in actuality. Dickinson describes the train as it “lick[s] up the valleys” and feed[s] itself at a tank. These activities do not mean the train is actually licking the valleys and feeding itself out of a tank. Dickinson creatively describes the act of the train moving through the valley blissfully and quickly, while occasionally stopping to fuel its engine to continue down the road. By illuminating the trains activity with human like characteristics, the author keeps the reader’s full attention as the concept of the train becomes more relate able to the audience. The use of personification throughout a piece can truly captivate the audience’s attention, while also bringing life to a piece.