Tuesday Poem: “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 grew 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 but a mound.
Since then ’tis centuries, and yet each
Feels shorter than the day
I first surmised the horses’ heads
Were toward eternity.
Emily Dickinson, 1830-1886
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Emily Dickinson lived a quiet secluded life and her large body of poetic work was not discovered until after her death, but is regarded as amongst the most influential in American poetry.
‘Because I could not stop for Death’ is possibly the most celebrated of all Emily Dickinson’s poems. The version used here follows that used by by Thomas H. Johnson in The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson 1955, and Johnson wrote of Death, as conceived in this poem, as “one of the great characters of literature.”
It’s one of my favourites of hers. There’s such a wry amusement in that first stanza – it’s not just acceptance, and it’s anything but passive. Good choice.
Thanks, Jo. I love ‘I like to see it lap the miles’ as well, but I think this is the profounder poem—as well as one of the most significant in her canon.
Love this poem. It’s one of my favourites of hers too.
“Deceptively simple” is one of those facile phrases that get’s thrown around a lot, especially in regards to poetry—but this really is deceptively simple, while packing quite a punch.
Hah, how excellent to find this poem here, Helen. I have just this minute sent the following lines from a different ED poem to a friend in Wellington (“Much Madness is DIvinest Sense, to a Discerning Eye; much Madness, the Starkest Sense… ). It came to mind while she and I were exchanging emails about the price list for an exhibition!
I love the muscularity of Emily Dickinson’s writing. Thanks, C
A monumental choice! What consistently strikes me in relation to this poem from Dickinson is the quixotic nature of time. How it moves at once so deftly and equally so laggardly. Exquisite!
Yes, it’s almost a scientific space-time understanding as well as a metaphysical one—and the whole poem is “pace-perfect”.
Helen,
Thanks for posting this gem.
I once took a graduate seminar with Vivian Pollack and was rewarded with such a deep appreciation for ED that she has become one of my essential poets. She was so profoundly clever, mind-bogglingly so.
John
Perhaps testament, given her life, to the zen adage that the noblest form of learning about/understanding of life and the human condition is through meditation …