There is no Frigate like a Book
To take us Lands away
Nor any Coursers like a Page
Of prancing Poetry –
This Traverse may the poorest take
Without oppress of Toll –
How frugal is the Chariot
That bears the Human Soul –
The best books transport readers in ways a plane or boat (“frigate”) cannot. Likewise, poems such as this one carry us to faraway lands faster than the fastest horse (or, in the words of this poem, “courser”). Emily Dickinson would know—she rarely left her hometown of Amherst, Massachusetts. Perhaps the prolific poet was content with letting her mind journey through her transportive short poems.