Emily Dickinson was born on December 10, 1830 in Amherst, Massachusetts. She lived at home with her parents and younger sister, Lavinia. Her father, Edward Dickinson, served in Congress for one term while her brother, Austin, became an attorney and lived next door with his wife, Susan Gilbert. Dickinson was heavily influenced by seventeenth-century England poets and the Book of Revelation. She regularly enclosed poems in letters to friends and after her death in 1886, her family discovered forty handbound volumes containing nearly 1,800 poems. Despite living a reclusive life, her bold and unique poetic style opens up a whole other world for readers today.  

 

Because I could not stop for Death (479)  

Emily Dickinson (1830 – 1886) 

 

Because I could not stop for Death  – 
He kindly stopped for me  – 
The Carriage held but just Ourselves  –   
And Immortality. 

We slowly drove  –  He knew no haste 
And I had put away 
My labor and my leisure too, 
For His Civility  –  

We passed the School, where Children strove 
At Recess –  in the Ring  –  
We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain  –
We passed the Setting Sun  – 

Or rather  –  He passed us  –  
The Dews drew quivering and chill   –
For only Gossamer, my Gown  –  
My Tippet  –  only Tulle  –  

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  –  

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In this poem, the speaker – whether it is Emily herself or not – is describing her journey with Death from life to the afterlife. One of the themes that this poem expresses is that death is unavoidable and does not accommodate with anyone. Death plays by its own rules and takes whenever it wants. Death, or knowing that you are close to death can be scary to experience; for it is not the part of life itself, but it is getting to it that frightens most people. It frightens most people because not everyone knows the next place they are going – whether it is Heaven or Hell. However, death is not something that one person can stop. This is evident in the opening line: “Because I could not stop for Death – He kindly stopped for me-” (lines 1-2).  The speaker cannot stop for Death because she is trying to live her life in every way that she can and does not have time. It is not until he “kindly” stops for her that she has no choice but to join him because like a Grimm Reaper, Death lingers, waiting patiently for her to realize that her time has come. In the next stanza, the speaker states, “We slowly drove – He knew no haste – And I had put away/My labor and my leisure too, For his Civility-” (lines 5-8). Here, Death is no hurry, for it is in control and the speaker has to accommodate him by putting away what she had been doing before his untimely and unexpected arrival. In life, everyone has control of their own destinies, but once that last breath is exhaled, death takes over the reins.  

 

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Source: https://poets.org/poem/because-i-could-not-stop-death-479