Because I Could Not Stop for Death - Emily Dickinson - Poetry: The Best Words in the Best Order - #Blogchatter A2Z Challenge

 BECAUSE I COULD NOT STOP FOR DEATH

Emily Dickinson

                                                                       Fine Art America

                                   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 Grazing 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 towards Eternity -

Emily Dickinson 

The Poet: Emily Elizabeth Dickinson (1830 -1886)

Emily Dickinson has the distinction of being one of America's most prolific and original poets of all times. She challenged the existing definitions of poetry, moving away from the conventional restrictions of expression, along with other creative geniuses like Ralph Waldo Emerson, Walt Whitman and Henry David Thoreau. She had a healthy respect for the Romantic poets as also writers like the Bronte sisters, Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning and George Eliot. However, she was not recognized during her lifetime, and her volumes of poetry were published posthumously.

'Because I Could Not Stop For Death' is one of her most notable poems. Death is personified as a courteous old gentleman who stops his carriage for her. As she climbs in, she finds that Immortality, the antithesis of Death, is her co-passenger.

Death being in no hurry, they drive at leisure, passing the school where children are enjoying their break, and the fields of golden grain that appear to be watching them. As the setting sun passes them, she feels a chill as she is clad only in a gossamer gown and a thin, silken scarf. 

Finally, the carriage pauses before a house whose roof is hardly visible, with its cornice (an ornamental molding that runs round) below the ground, reminiscent of a tomb.

Since then, centuries have elapsed, and she and Death have lived in this very house. Yet, all those centuries seem shorter than that one fateful day when Death stopped for her, that day when as the journey progressed, she guessed that the horses' heads were turned towards Eternity, or the afterlife, a belief propagated both in Christian and Hindu philosophy.

Thus, the poem's theme revolves around Death. While we are never prepared to die, Death is meant to be embraced, not feared, because it is inevitable. 

                                                                   Emily Dickinson

This post is a part of #BlogchatterA2ZChallenge2021

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