Dickinson’s Riddles

“It sifts from leaden sieves” and “I like to see it lap the miles”

Mar 23, 2007

Emily Dickinson wrote several poems just for pure fun; they are like riddles that do not mention the subject, which must be determined by interpreting the poetic devices.

While Emily Dickinson wrote most of her poems focusing on profound themes such as life, death, the afterlife, and the complexity of human relationships, she also wrote a number of poems that were pure fun; they are riddles, because they describe the subject but leave it up to the reader to determine what the subject is.

“It sifts from Leaden Sieves”

One poem that works as a riddle is her much anthologized “It sifts from Leaden Sieves.” The poem consists of five four-line stanzas. In the first stanza, the speaker metaphorically describes the subject as a substance much like flour, because “It sifts from Leaden Sieves” as a housewife would sift flour for baking.

But when the housewife sifts the flour, she is placing it either in a bowl in order to prepare the dough or over a countertop surface to roll out the dough. But the substance that is being sifted in this poem does not fall into a kitchen utensil, it “powders all the Wood” and fills in the crevices in the roadway and looks like “Alabaster Wool.”

In the second stanza, the kitchen metaphor gives way to a hyperbolic face as the speaker claims that this substance is powdered so deep as to make a mountain and the plain look level: “Unbroken Forehead from the East / Unto the East again.” In the third stanza, the speaker says the substance “reaches to the Fence” and it encircles each fence rail with “Fleeces.” It makes the fence look as if it is wearing a light vail.

In the fourth stanza, the speaker describes a field as “A Summer’s empty Room” because the field has been harvested and only pieces of stubble are left, and the substance is filling up the empty field. One would not even recognize it as a field except for these few dried stalks sticking up out of the white material.

The last stanza portrays the white substance as lace as one might see a queen wear, but this lace “Ruffles Wrists of Posts.” Then suddenly the art work of this craftsman who is using this white substance to create this winter painting comes to a halt. The scene is complete. What is the white substance? Snow, of course.

“I like to see it lap the Miles”

Another riddle poem is “I like to see it lap the Miles.” The poem metaphorically dramatizes its subject, so in a sense it is a double riddle: what is the metaphor itself and what is it metaphorically describing? The poem consists of four stanzas: the first, second, and fourth stanzas have four lines, while the third stanza has five lines.

In the first stanza, the speaker says she likes “to see it lap the Miles / And lick the Valleys up / And stop to fee itself at Tanks.” The subject of this riddle sounds like an animal lapping up water perhaps, and licking up a salt lick or food, but then it stops to “feed itself at Tanks.” So while the subject sounds similar to an animal, probably a horse, it is obviously not an animal but something much more powerful, because it is capable of “step[ping] / Around a Pile of Mountains.”

Furthermore, it can look into shacks along its path. Also, this subject can carve out a space through the mountains “To fit its Ribs.” But the subject itself surely did not literally cut through the mountain, but its necessity caused this work to be performed. As this subject is making its way through all of these miles and through the mountains, it makes a distinctive sound, “Complaining all the while / In horrid — hooting stanza.” One can realize readily that a horse does not hoot, so it becomes clear at this point in the poem that the riddle is not describing a horse, but merely using a horse as a metaphor to describe the intended subject.

The final description of the subject has it “chas[ing] itself down Hill” and “neigh[ing] like Boanerges.” (Boanerges means “sons of thunder,” an appellation given to James and John by Christ because of their zealousness. Mark 3:17) Then the subject arrives at its destination on time, and it ends its journey “docile and omnipotent / At its own stable door.” The metaphor of a horse remains until the end. But by now the reader knows the subject is a railway locomotive, not a horse, of course.