"Because I could not stop for Death," by Emily Dickinson
Author: Emily Dickinson
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He kindly stopped for me –
The Carriage held but just Ourselves –
And Immortality.
Because I could not stop for Death –
He kindly stopped for me –
The Carriage held but just Ourselves –
And Immortality.
She is describes how you cannot control when you die. How death comes when it wants to. Carriages are meant to carry people. What could the carriage represent?
We slowly drove – He knew no haste
And I had put away
My labor and my leisure too,
For His Civility –
The speaker having a life could be like a tool for death. It sets up and creates death’s job. To remove the living from the Earth.
We passed the School, where Children strove
At Recess – in the Ring –
We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain –
We passed the Setting Sun –
How there are still people that are alive. Death has not come for them yet. They are still “striving” aka living.
Or rather – He passed Us –
The Dews drew quivering and Chill –
For only Gossamer, my Gown –
My Tippet – only Tulle –
Or the speaker’s old memories of her life. She could be looking back on everything that happened. Everything that she used to do.
We paused before a House that seemed
A Swelling of the Ground –
The Roof was scarcely visible –
The Cornice – in the Ground –
Since then – 'tis Centuries – and yet
Feels shorter than the Day
I first surmised the Horses' Heads
Were toward Eternity –
what does surmised mean and how can you do it to a horse?
Reprinted by permission of the publishers and the Trustees of Amherst College from THE POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON: READING EDITION, edited by Ralph W. Franklin, ed., Cambridge, Mass.:
The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Copyright © 1998, 1999 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College.
Copyright © 1951, 1955, 1979, 1983 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College.
Source: The Poems of Emily Dickinson, edited by R.W. Franklin (Harvard University Press, 1999)
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