PoemReviews: Because I Could Not Stop For Death (By: Emily Dickinson)

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 –

Comment

This poem was composed by Emily Dickinson around 1863. The narrative voice is female, it tells us an unexpected and also "kindly" visit of the "Death" personified as a gentleman.

With extreme grace, the death invites her to get into his carriage for a journey. 

At some point she is in front of her grave, she is already dead, she remains deadpan in front of the mystery of life, not for insensibility but for a lack of proper words, that aren't present in any vocabulary of the world, and then the impossibility to describe what happen after the afterlife.