Try It
Answer the questions based on Emily Dickinson's poem "I like to see it lap the miles."
1.) Read the two lines below.
"I like to see it lap the miles,
And lick the valleys up"
These two lines describe how fast the pronoun "it" travels across the land. Based on the lines, what is the pace that it is moving?
Answer: Fast. If it is lapping the miles, then it would be going at a rather high speed.
2.) Based on the first line of the poem, "I like to see it lap the miles," what is the point of view?
Answer: First person. I is a first person pronoun.
3.) In the first three lines of the poem, Dickinson uses the imagery of eating. What are these three words that show "it" eating?
"I like to see it lap the miles,
And lick the valleys up,
And stop to feed itself at tanks"
Answer: lap, lick, feed
4.) What is the example of alliteration in the lines below?
"Complaining all the while
In horrid, hooting stanza"
Answer: "horrid hooting" the repitition of the h sound make this line alliterative
5.) What type of figurative language is found in the lines below?
"And neigh like Boanerges;
Then punctual as a star"
Answer: Simile. The line is an unlike comparison using the word like.
6.) What kind of rhyme do you find in the stanza below?
"I like to see it lap the miles,
And lick the valleys up,
And stop to feed itself at tanks;
And then, prodigious, step"
Answer: Slant rhyme. The poem uses slant rhyme in the rhyme scheme ABCB. "Up" and "step" are slant rhymes.
7.) This poem is written like a riddle. What does the word "it" refer to in the poem?
Answer: A train. All of the images hint at "it" being a train: "lap the miles," "step around a pile of mountains," "chase itself down hill," and "punctual"
8.) What is the speaker comparing the "it" to in the poem?
Answer: A horse. The extended metaphor compares the train to a horse: "prodigious step," "hooting stanza," "neigh," and "stable."
