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 it's 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 it's own stable door-


1. seeit] hear it-
9. sides] Ribs-
14. And] And, or then-
15. prompter than] punctual as-

Manuscript: About 1862, in packet 27 (H 144b).
Publication: Poems (1891), 39, titled "The Railway Train." Only the suggested change for line 15 is adopted. Stanza 3 is arranged as a quatrain.

The original is reprinted by permission of the publishers and Trustees of Amherst College from The Poems of Emily Dickinson, Thomas H. Johnson, ed., Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Copyright 1951, 1955, 1979, 1983 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College.

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