I like to see it lap the Miles - (383)

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 it's own stable door -

Notes:

The Poetry Foundation often receives questions about Emily Dickinson's poems. Read a note from the digital archive editor about Dickinson's "errors."

Source: The Poems of Emily Dickinson, Edited by R.W. Franklin (Harvard University Press, 1999)