Walt Whitman’s ‘To a Locomotive in Winter’ and Emily Dickinson’s ‘I Like to see it lap the miles’ are two poems that are written about trains, albeit in different styles. While Whitman’s poem is straightforward and the reader is clear that he is talking about a train, Dickinson’s poem uses imagery and a roundabout way to describe a train going through the hills. Both the poems have different tones- Whitman uses a more formal tone while talking about the train, while Dickinson uses a rhyming structure that is more folksy in nature. Both the poets use different formal techniques in their poems to talk about trains. Dickinson uses a lot of animal imagery to describe the train which is absent in Whitman’s poem. The poems are also reflective of the way both these poets look at the train. One looks at it with awe while the other looks at it with a bit of unease. If Whitman’s train is lawless in its thundering past tracks and in its sound, Dickinson's train is something that can be tamed at the end.
Whitman’s poem is a recitative as he makes it clear in the first line of the poem. The poem is more like a passage that employs a distinct style. He employs the technique of onomatopoeia to add a dramatic quality to the poem. Even though there are just two words in the entire poem. ‘roar’ and ‘belching’ that serves as examples of onomatopoeia, whitman uses a combination of words throughout the poem to create the pulsating sound of a train clattering through the tracks. Whitman does not use sounds normally associated with trains such as chugchug or clickety clack to create a rhythm or the effect of the train moving. Instead he creates the effect and rhythm by using action verbs and descriptive words. Alliteration is another technique that he uses to create the sounds of a moving train. He describes the train’s body as being ‘silvery steel’ (line 4) and says ‘fix’d in front’ (line 7) when talking about its headlight. Together with hard consonants, verbs and dramatic adjectives, Whitman describes the wonder of a moving train. Whitman is taken up by the modern advances in transport and the poem is his way of merging poetry and technology. With this poem he stands on the cusp of romanticism and modernism. His use of anaphors gives the poem its formal tone. Almost all the lines of the poem starts with ‘thee’ or thy’. The first three lines start with thee and lines 7, 8, 10, 11 and 17 start with ‘thy’. Not only do these anaphors add a formal tone to the poem but they also add to the lyrical and rhythmic nature of the poem. The changing between the ‘thee’ and ‘thy’ sound is reminiscent of the sound a passing train makes. The poem is also in free verse. Whitman does not follow a pattern in either his lines or stanzas. This is also a technique that he uses to describe the power of the train as well as its ability to transcend. He calls the train and its movement a law unto itself, so are the sounds that it makes which Whitman describes as ‘lawless’. The locomotive is about raw power as he says, there are no sweet sounds of a harp or a piano associated with it. The formal tone of the poem also makes it sound like it could be a speech or an address to someone. Whitman is in awe of the locomotive and his words and descriptions of the train clearly bring it out.
Dickinson’s ‘I like to see it lap the miles’ is also about a train but unlike Whitman she does not make it very obvious. Rather than describe the train through its physical parts and the sounds that it makes, she uses imagery, symbolism and wordplay to talk about it. She makes it sound like she is talking about a beast or an animal rather than an inanimate object. In the first stanza, she describes the train as a ravenous animal that wolfs down the miles and the valleys before finally stopping to feed itself. She uses animal imagery here to talk about the train refuelling. The train is also turned into a very vocal creature and there is nothing subtle about it. She uses an animal sound to describe the sound that the train makes. She calls the sound ‘horrid hooting’ (line 12). The alliteration in the line also adds to the uninhibited animal like quality of the train. Another line where she uses animal imagery to describe the train is in line 13 where she says, ‘the train chases itself downhill’ like a puppy would chase its tail. In line 14-17, she uses a simile to compare the train to a horse. It thunders past, gobbling up everything but goes back to its stable, quiet and omnipotent. ‘And neigh like Boanerges (line 14). In this line Dickinson makes a biblical allusion. Boanerges is an Aramaic nickname that means ‘sons of thunder’. Jesus had called two of his most vociferous disciples Boanerges. Dickinson also uses iambic tetrameter and trimeter within one stanza. The first line of the poem has like, see, lap and miles which counts as four stresses. The second line however only has three -lick,val and up. By alternating between iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter, Dickinson creates a ballad meter. This usage makes the poem sound more like a folk ballad. The rhyme scheme in the poem is ABCB and she follows it throughout.
Thus Whitman and Dickinson use completely different styles to describe a train. While Whitman’s awe over man’s new invention is palpable through his dramatic descriptions, Dickinson’s description is a little ambiguous. She is enthralled by the new creature but is also a little worried about what it might actually do. Whitman’s poem lacks any animal imagery while Dickinson’s poem is replete with it. Dickinson’s poem has a folksy nature to it while Whitman uses a more formal tone to describe his train. Compared to Dickinson's usage of a regular rhyme pattern in her poem, Whitman’s poem is in free verse. Unlike Whitman’s train that is a law unto itself, Dickinson's train is tamed at the end when i goes silently to it station after thundering past. Both the poets use simile to describe different aspects of the train. Whitman says that the train ‘rumbles like an earthquake’ while Dickinson says that her train is like Boanerges. The way both the poems sound is reflective of the attitudes the poets have towards the train. Whitman sees it as an wondrous object while Dickinson compares it repeatedly to an animal. While Whitman describes it for what it is, Dickinson uses animal imagery perhaps to make it less a machine and more of something she could make sense of. The sense of unease that can be felt in Dickinson's poem is not felt in Whitman’s poem for he has completely given in to the new invention and mostly uses superlatives to describe the way it is built and the way it moves.Whitman uses a more passionate tone in the poem while describing the train- he calls it the ‘fierce throated beauty’ while Dickinson’s approach is rather mellow. Compared to the lawless, strong train of Whitman, Dickinson’s train sounds rather timid as it fits itself to the sides of the hills. Both the poems are about the movement of the train, the power it wields and the noise it makes. Both the poets also use highly descriptive language to describe these characteristics of the train. Whitman calls the train his muse and attempts to tame it with his lines while Dickinson sees it as an animal that can be tamed. Both the poets also talk about the whimsical nature of the trains- they move about freely. The similarities of the poems are however few compared to the differences between them. Even though the trains are described as being powerful by both the poets, there is a difference in how powerful they are and how the power affects the poets. The train in Whitman’s is more threatening in its power and the sounds that it makes while Dickinson’s train is somehow a tameable, likeable version. Thus the two poems, even though they talk about the same object differ completely in their style, tone, use of imagery, simile and rhyme pattern.
Works Cited
Whitman, Walt. “To a Locomotive in Winter.” Bartleby. N.d. Web. 18 Mar 2016.
Dickinson, Emily.” I Like to see it Lap the Miles.” Poetry Foundation. n.d . Web. 18 Mar 2016.
