I like to see it lap the Miles Questions

Bring on the tough stuff - there’s not just one right answer.

  1. If this is a poem about a train, a manmade invention, why bother with all of this animal imagery?
  2. What are the speaker's feelings about the train? She says that she "likes" to see it as it speeds by – is that the only emotion she expresses, or might her feelings be more complicated?
  3. Is this train a girl or a boy? Or does it have both masculine and feminine aspects?
  4. What do you think the train is "[c]omplaining" about in line 10?
  5. We see a whole lot of the train, but not the countryside it passes through, or its inhabitants. What might this empty landscape signify?