I LIKE TO SEE IT LAP THE MILES:
STUDY QUESTIONS

• What other animal can step around piles of mountains, pare a quarry, or chase itself downhill, and what can the human race do to protect ourselves from it?

• 
  

• When Dickinson characterizes the horse-train as “complaining,” do you think she is actually referring to her parents? Or to unidentified voices she hears in her head? Don’t submit your answer to your teacher: instead, take it directly to your school’s psychologist.

• 
  

• Look at the words that end alternating lines of each stanza: “up/step,” “peer/pare,” “while/hill,” “star/door.” Replace one word from each pair with a word that actually does rhyme with the other.

• 
  

• Dickinson says that the horse-train is peering in shanties. Do you think that it would be sued for invasion of privacy if it peered into nice houses, or were horse-trains allowed to peer wherever they wanted in the 1800s? Why or why not?

• 
  

• Emily Dickinson never gave her poems titles, so they are commonly titled by the first line of each poem. Make up a more fitting title for this poem without the words “crap,” “nonsense” or “psychotic,” or any of their synonyms.

• If so, would the oxen be amazed to see him praying? Write a poem from an oxen’s point of view about the crazy birds an old oxen used to tell him about when he was just a little ox.

• Usually a nativity scene, or crèche, will include a variety of animals. Why do you think Hardy chose to mention oxen in particular?  Make a case for what religion you think sheep and lambs practice, and why. Be sure to specify which particular denomination you think they follow, e.g., the United Brethren in Christ sect of the Evangelical Church.