Emily Dickinson

Emily Elizabeth Dickinson was born in Amherst, Massachusetts, on December 10, 1830 to
Edward Dickinson and Emily Norcross Dickinson. She attended Amherst Academy from 1840 to
1847, then enrolled at Mount Holyoke Female Seminary from 1847 to 1848. She remained in
Amherst for the rest of her life, and traveled only briefly to Boston, Philadelphia and
Washington, D.C.

For virtually her entire adult life, Emily lived in the Dickinson home at 280 Main Street with her
father, mother, and her younger sister, Lavinia, who Emily called “Vinnie.” She has one brother,
Austin. After the death of her father in 1874 and her mother the following year, Emily remained
in the family home, living alone with Vinnie. Emily died there on May 15, 1886, at the age of 55.
Renowned for a severe reclusiveness that began when she was in her 20s, Dickinson maintained
warm and close relationships with family and friends through the medium of letters, frequently
containing poems.

Although Emily and Lavinia were very close, and Lavinia was aware that Emily wrote poetry,
she was not aware of the extent of her sister’s writing. Upon Emily’s death, Lavinia discovered
how prolific and talented her sister had been when she found 1,775 poems in Emily’s bureau
drawer. Emily wrote some 1,789 poems, some contained in letters to friends and family, some
sewn together in little bundles called fascicles that Emily stored in her drawers, some written on
scraps of paper like shopping lists or envelope flaps. Lavinia preserved the poems she found,
distributing them between Mabel Loomis Todd and Susan Dickinson, but destroyed all of
Emily’s correspondence in accord with her sister’s previously expressed wishes.

Within 10 years of Emily’s death, three volumes of her poetry and two volumes of her letters
were published by Thomas Wentworth Higginson and Mabel Loomis Todd, a woman with
whom Austin had a long-term affair during his marriage to Susan. Emily Dickinson’s niece,
Martha Dickinson Bianchi (Austin’s daughter), also helped to publish her aunt’s poetry
beginning in 1914.

Most of her work is not only reflective of the small moments of what happens around her, but
also of the larger battles and themes of what was happening in the larger society. For example,
over half of her poems were written during the years of the American Civil War.

Today, Dickinson is not only considered one of the most accessible poets of all time but one of
the most representative. Features of her work that were considered oddities have become
signature aspects of her style and form. Dramatic asides, odd capitalization, telegraphic dash
punctuation, hymnbook rhythms, off-rhymes, multiple voices, and elaborate metaphors have
become recognizable to readers across time and translations of her work.
Because I Could Not Stop for Death

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 labour, and my leisure too,
For his civility.

We passed the school where children played,

Their lessons scarcely done;
We passed the fields of gazing grain,
We passed the setting sun.

We paused before a house that seemed

A swelling of the ground;
The roof was scarcely visible,
The cornice but a mound.

Since then ’tis centuries; but each

Feels shorter than the day
I first surmised the horses’ heads
Were toward eternity.

Meaning
Line 1
Because I could not stop for Death –
Dickinson wastes no time warming up in this poem. She immediately lets the reader know that
the poem is going to be about death. "Because" is a clever way to begin. It immediately assumes
the speaker is giving some sort of an explanation to an argument or to a question. This makes the
poem seem active and alive, unlike many other poems, which sometimes take more of an
observant position. Stating that she could not stop for death means that the speaker did not have a
choice about when she was to die. Dickinson capitalizes death, which is something she does
often to nouns (sometimes without any reason). In this particular case she means to personify
Death as a gentleman suitor who drives a horse-drawn carriage. The line ends with a dash that is
both characteristic of Dickinson's work and that really launches us into the next line.
Line 2 He kindly stopped for me –
Death is a kind of a gentleman who stopped his carriage for the speaker. This line establishes the
tone that most of the poem follows: one of calm acceptance about death. She's even going to
enjoy the ride!

Lines 3-4
The Carriage held but just Ourselves –
And Immortality.
In these two lines, the speaker says that she, Death and immortality are in the carriage. As
mentioned above, Dickinson personifies Death to make him a real character, but in these two
lines the capitalized words probably are not supposed to be characters. Since Dickinson often
capitalizes nouns, it is probably safe to consider that she capitalized "Carriage," "Ourselves," and
"Immortality" more for emphasis than anything else. "Immortality" is the most complicated and
interesting word of the three. Our first instinct might be to ask, "Wait, you're riding in a carriage
with Death – don't you mean mortality?" So this is the first hint we get that the speaker does not
think of death as The End, but as a step on the way to eternal life – an afterlife of some sort.

Stanza 2
Line 5
We slowly drove – He knew no haste
The three of them took their time getting to wherever it is they are going. "He knew no haste" is
an old-fashioned way of saying Death did not speed or hurry. The shift from "We" to "He" in the
same line is an important one. The "We" might allow the reader to think the speaker has some
control over the pace, but Dickinson quickly reminds us that "He" is the one determining the
relaxed progress and that the speaker's just along for the ride. While we have already determined
that the speaker is not afraid of Death, this slow pace still creates a feeling of drawn-out suspense
in the poem and keeps us wondering what might happen.

Lines 6-8
And I put away
My labor and my leisure too,
For his Civility –

Lines 6-7 mean that she has given up work and free time. Line 8 works a couple of ways. First,
we can read "For" as "because of." So, she gave up thinking about work and play because Death
is just so polite and charming that he distracted her from anything else. Or, we can read the "for"
as "in place of." So, similar to the first interpretation, she has given up the worries (work) and
joys (leisure) of life in exchange for his graciousness. We might even guess that she is starting to
feel more civil and social too. Either way, the speaker seems pretty content with, if not a little
gaga for Death.

Stanza 3
Line 9-10
We passed the School, where Children Strove
At Recess – in the Ring –
Dickinson is painting a little scene of what they are riding by. They see children playing in the
schoolyard during recess. This scene seems almost eerily normal. At first, we're in this strange
scene with death that doesn't seem at all normal, then we're looking at something totally familiar.
This mixing of the unreal and real makes the poem seem even stranger. Further, it makes death
and dying seem like just another ordinary part of life.

Line 11-12
We passed the Field of Gazing Grain –
We passed the Setting Sun –
More scene setting. They pass "the fields of […] grain" and "the setting sun." When she
describes the grain as "gazing" maybe she thinks the thicker tops of the grain resemble heads, or
perhaps that the grain seems to stand still and just look at the carriage as it passes. The sun and
field are much more general descriptions of the scene than the previous lines, yet might even
have symbolic significance. The setting sun, for example, signifies the end of the day, but might
also stand for the end of life. We should also notice the repeated phrase, "We passed" (in poetry,
a repeated word or phrase throughout a poem is called anaphora). Here it works to mimic the
slow progression of the carriage. One can almost hear the echo of clomping horse hooves in the
repeated phrase. So instead of feeling like this poem is at a standstill, we are aware that it is
moving forward. It almost allows us to be a part of their journey, not just outside observers.

Stanza 4
Line 13
Or rather – He passed Us –
Quite literally, the sun passes her because it falls below the horizon. But, reading a little deeper
into it, Dickinson suggests that maybe that is what death is like – the sun, light, and warmth
leaving you to the cold darkness that is death. Dickinson uses personification again as she refers
to the sun. It seems the farther along in the journey they get, the farther from the living world
they get. There are no other people or animals and it is getting dark. It is a little spooky at this
point. The fact that the adjustment, "or rather," is made after the stanza break only enhances the
spookiness. The long pause between stanzas allows us to notice that the poem is about to make a
shift away from the sunny ordinary day into something more grave.

Lines 14-16
The Dews drew quivering and Chill –
For only Gossamer, my Gown –
My Tippet – only Tulle –
"Gossamer" is used here to describe her gown as one of very thin and delicate material. "Tippet"
is an old-fashioned shawl or shoulder cape, and this one is made of "tulle," which is silky and
thin like gossamer. The dew of night is setting in because the sun has gone down. She is now
getting chilly because she is not wearing warm enough clothing. The fact that she is under-
dressed for this journey also reflects that she is under-prepared. This stanza echoes what we
discovered in the beginning line – this is not her choice and she was not planning this trip with
Death. Cold is something often associated with death in literature. So it is no coincidence that
Dickinson is lowering the temperature on us here.

Stanza 5
Line 17-18
We paused before a House that seemed
A Swelling of the Ground –
These line make it clear that the speaker is going to die. Death just led her to her burial spot! The
"we paused" marks the second stop in the poem. The first instance was the beginning of the
journey when Death stops to pick up the speaker. So we might guess that this second stop could
end their journey. Using the word "House" to indicate the place of burial is a clever move by
Dickinson. Instead of "grave" or "tombstone," which might stir up images of finality and death,
she uses a word that we consider synonymous with "dwelling" or even "home." We have heard
some people call a gravesite the "final resting place"? This is a subtler way to say that. "A
Swelling of the Ground" eliminates any possibility that we might think this is not a grave.

Line 19-20
The Roof was scarcely visible –
The Cornice – in the Ground
These lines continue to explain this burial house, but it gets a little tricky. A cornice is the
pointed part of the roof, and here it is in the ground. So if the highest part of house is in the
ground, the rest of it must be too. Further grave evidence. What part of this burial house can the
speaker actually see? It is unclear, but she seems to know what it is and she is OK with it. There
is no turning and running for it, as you might typically expect.

Stanza 6
Line 21-22
Since then – 'tis Centuries – and yet
Feels shorter than the Day
This happened centuries ago?! This really throws a wrench in the whole system. The poem
seems to be telling a recent memory, but this all actually happened a really long time ago. It
Means the speaker has been dead the whole time. "Feels shorter than the Day" is just an old-
fashioned way of saying something like, "feels like just yesterday." So this memory remains
vivid for the speaker.

Line 23-24
I first surmised the Horses' Heads
Were toward Eternity –
These final lines recall the very first time the speaker encountered the horse-drawn carriage and
had a feeling that they were more than just regular horses – that they signified her journey to the
afterlife. Ending on the image of the horse heads is really smart of Dickinson, because they jut
forward and it almost looks like they are pointing toward something. In this case, "Eternity." It is
also very bold of Dickinson to end on this image because this is the first time we have heard of
the horses, and suddenly she is asking them to hold up the most important moment of the poem.
The final stanza is full of surprising moments for the reader. We find out the speaker has been
dead for years and we are introduced to (and left with) this striking image of the horses' heads
pushing forward.

Analysis
Because I could not stop for Death was published in 1863, and believed to be written between
1855 and 1863. These are the years in which Emily Dickinson wrote most intensely. During
Dickinson’s early years, she experienced the death of many people close to her, including that of
her cousin. It is easy to see why she felt familiar with death. Dickinson also lived near a
cemetery, so she watched many people, even loved ones riding in a hearse to their final resting
places. This is a likely inspiration for the setting of this poem. In times of sorrow, she would
likely have heard sermons about salvation, paradise, and mansions waiting in eternity. During
Dickinson’s lifetime, many of her close family members and friends joined the church as the
1830s saw what many referred to as “revivals” or “awakenings” in which many people
proclaimed faith in Jesus Christ and eternal life.

Because I could not stop for Death makes it very clear that the author, at some point in her life,
viewed death as something sweet and gentle. She welcomed death, perhaps because of the idea
that she would be only passing from this life to somewhere better. This is portrayed in the first
stanza of the poem when the author begins her ride with Death, viewing him as a welcome and
familiar friend. She is calm and reflective as she passes by the school children and the grain
field. She’s at peace watching the beautiful sun set on her life. But when the warmth of the sun is
gone and the damp cold sets in, she looks at her new home, and it is not a mansion in the sky, but
merely a swelling of the ground. Dickinson appears to have toyed with the idea of believing in an
afterlife in paradise, but in the end claimed that she was “one of the lingering bad ones”, which
suggests that she wanted to believe in life after death in paradise, but could not. In the end, she
believed the grave was her final resting place.

Dickinson’s poems deal with death again and again, and it is never quite the same in any poem.
In “Because I could not stop for Death—,” we see death personified. He is no frightening, or
even intimidating, reaper, but rather a courteous and gentle guide, leading her to eternity. The
speaker feels no fear when Death picks her up in his carriage, she just sees it as an act of
kindness, as she was too busy to find time for him.

It is this kindness, this individual attention to her—it is emphasized in the first stanza that the
carriage holds just the two of them, doubly so because of the internal rhyme in “held” and
“ourselves”—that leads the speaker to so easily give up on her life and what it contained. This is
explicitly stated, as it is “For His Civility” that she puts away her “labor” and her “leisure,”
which is Dickinson using metonymy to represent another alliterative word—her life.

Indeed, the next stanza shows the life is not so great, as this quiet, slow carriage ride is
contrasted with what she sees as they go. A school scene of children playing, which could be
emotional, is instead only an example of the difficulty of life—although the children are playing
“At Recess,” the verb she uses is “strove,” emphasizing the labors of existence. The use of
anaphora with “We passed” also emphasizes the tiring repetitiveness of mundane routine.

The next stanza moves to present a more conventional vision of death—things become cold and
more sinister, the speaker’s dress is not thick enough to warm or protect her. Yet it quickly
becomes clear that though this part of death—the coldness, and the next stanza’s image of the
grave as home—may not be ideal, it is worth it, for it leads to the final stanza, which ends with
immortality. Additionally, the use of alliteration in this stanza that emphasizes the material
trappings—“gossamer” “gown” and “tippet” “tulle”—makes the stanza as a whole less sinister.
That immorality is the goal is hinted at in the first stanza, where “Immortality” is the only other
occupant of the carriage, yet it is only in the final stanza that we see that the speaker has obtained
it. Time suddenly loses its meaning; hundreds of years feel no different than a day. Because time
is gone, the speaker can still feel with relish that moment of realization, that death was not just
death, but immortality, for she “surmised the Horses’ Heads/Were toward Eternity –.” By ending
with “Eternity –,” the poem itself enacts this eternity, trailing out into the infinite.