"Because I could not stop for Death" Video

Emily Dickinson’s poem, “Because I Could Not Stop for Death,” was published in 1886 after the author’s death. Today, the poem ranks as one of Dickinsons’ most popular, reflecting as it does her favorite themes, such as death and faith.“

Because I could not stop for Death – / He kindly stopped for me,” reads the poem’s eponymous first line. Dickinson’s speaker goes on to describe her journey with Death, who is personified as the driver of a carriage, from life to afterlife. While she is unable to “stop for Death,” Death “kindly” takes the time to do what she cannot, stopping for her instead. Dickinson’s characterization of Death is notable; he is a courteous and gentle guide that inspires no fear in the speaker.

“We slowly drove — He knew no haste,” Dickinson’s speaker elaborates. “And I had put away / My labor and my leisure too, / For His Civility.” Again, Death is presented not as frightening, but rather as so civil that the speaker permits herself to give up the things that had preoccupied her in life: her “labor” and her “leisure too.”

Next, Dickinson’s speaker describes the world she’s leaving, from children playing at recess to more pastoral imagery, like fields of “Gazing Grain” and the “Setting Sun.” While it would be easy to ascribe a sense of loss to such sights, Dickinson might have used words like “strove” (for instance, “We passed the School, where Children strove”) to indicate a sense of relief at being free of life’s difficulties. Moreover, the repetition of the word “passed” conveys a sense of the mundane: “We passed the Setting Sun”

“Or rather — He passed Us” begins Dickinson’s fourth stanza, using a Volta, or turn, to show that her speaker has gone from an active participant in life to part of the landscape. Following this realization, the speaker’s death becomes more physical than before: “The Dews drew quivering and chill.” In this way, the fourth stanza conveys a more conventional vision of death, wherein the speaker’s dress is insufficiently warm or protective against the coldness of the afterlife.

Finally, the carriage pauses “before a House that seemed / A Swelling of the Ground.” Here, the speaker refers not to a home but to the grave where her body will rest, another foreboding image. However, Dickinson closes the poem by jumping centuries into the future, a span of time that her speaker has experienced as “shorter than the Day.” Without a sense of time passing, the speaker can appreciate that her grave is only a resting place, marking, if anything, the moment she realized that death was not just death, but immortality.