Because I could not stop for Death
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 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 't is centuries; but each Feels shorter than the day I first surmised the horses' heads Were toward eternity.
Of note
The Apple TV+ series Dickinson (2019) named its first episode after this poem's opening and cast the rapper Wiz Khalifa as Death. In the show, he appears to the young poet as an imagined companion.
Poetry Tale: Even Death Had an Editor
FREE AND OPEN: Hello Doggo’s music, recordings and artwork: CC0 1.0, credit optional. The source poem has its own rights status: Poem is public domain.
TEXT PROVENANCE · First published 12 November 1890 in Poems by Emily Dickinson · Text from Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series, Complete, a Project Gutenberg compilation of the 1890, 1891, and 1896 series.
Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series, Complete
Play narration using the audio controls. Download narration MP3