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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 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 toward Eternity —

This was a very interesting poem. Dickinson has a much different way of writing then Whitman, Emerson, and Thoreau. When I tried to interpret this poem some parts were easy, and some hard. I understand that she is riding in a carriage, I believe with a man. I think she is saying the carriage is a magical expierence, because she says "The Carriage held but just Ourselves-And Immortality." I think that means she feels safe in the carriage and whoever she is with because she feels immortal.(unable to die) Although from there on I struggle with the meaning of the poem, unless I am just trying to hard to get a meaning out of it? It seems to me as if the rest of the poem is just her explaining the whole carriage ride and the sights her and her companion saw. In the last couple of lines she says '"tis centuries since then, and yet feels shorter than the day." I think thats just a way for her to say it's been so long since the carriage ride, but it seems like it was yesterday. The one part im totally confused about is "I first surmised the Horses' Heads-Were toward Eternity." The word surmised means to guess, but I still wasn't able to make out what the whole line meant? Overall, I understood the general meaning of the poem I believe, but still have a few questions about it. I think if I can understand all of it I would appreciate it more as well (not that it was a bad/boring poem.) 1202855882

I have to agree with jpu when he said that Dickinson has a much different way of writing than Whitman, Emerson, and Throeau. When I read this poem, my first reaction was that this poem was probably written shortly after the death of her husband. Even the title, "Because I could not Stop Death", hints at this. Another reaction that I had was that she wrote this poem in the hopes of seeing her husband in some sort of afterlife. This poem really shows her devotion to her husband. If she loved him enough to hope that they would once again meet in the afterlife, then I think that is very romantic.

"Because I could not stop for Death — He kindly stopped for me — The Carriage held but just Ourselves — And Immortality."

This first stanza shows this very clearly. The fact that the carriage holds her, her husband, and immoraltity illustrates that this is taking place after they both have died. Overall, I actually liked this poem. It really shows the strength of love between two people.1202862618

the first time i read this poem i did not understand it was about her husband. actually did not know that she was married. but i thought this poem was really depresing and it was made clear that she was extreamly differnt than the other writers we have read. but it was interesting to read a poet that stuck to the normal way that poets wrote. i thought it was a really strong worded poem and i thought she really expressed a deep love that she felt for some one.1202864099

 I also found this to be an interesing poem. Personally, compared to Whitman, Emerson, and Thoreau, I like the way that Dickinson writes. Her poems are short and to the point, and with Whitman, Emerson, and Thoreau their works are a lot longer. I like poems better when they are short because most of the time they are easier to understand, especially because there isn't a lot to try to understand. When trying to understand this poem I had some difficulty but from reading the first post some of the parts made more sense. I think that I might understand the line "I first surmised the Horses' Heads-Were toward Eternity." This is my take on the line: I didn't understand the word surmised in this line so I looked it up and to summarize the definition it mostly means to think, so like an opinion. After looking that up the line made a lot more sense to me. Considering the poem seems to be set off of a carriage ride I think that it means that she first thought that the horses were faced towards eternity. To me, that line seems to say that the horses were going to walk forever. That is my take on the line. Overall I thought that this was an interesting poem and I can't wait to read some of her other poems. 1202864937

The poem can't have anything to do with her husband because SHE DID NOT HAVE A HUSBAND. I wonder what was in the poem that caused some of you to think that.1202867512

I really thought that this poem was so facinating. I think that that Emily meant that everyone has to go through death and that everyone on earth is facing it someway, even if we are not sure that we are. I think that while she is explaining the ordinary situations in life because it seems as though she has gone through something that has effected her so greatly and now she can put herself in other people's shoes when something goes wrong for them. Death is going to happen for everyone, and it's just a matter of time when it takes you away from the everyday life. One thing that i don't understand is the last stanza : "Since then — 'tis Centuries — and yet Feels shorter than the Day I first surmised the Horses' Heads Were toward Eternity — "

I think that maybe this stanza means that we have to face life head on towards eternity and see where it will someday take us 1202874272ape2

I'm not seeing the thrill of Emily Dickinson yet. i do understand that i have only read one of her poems so far but this one is beyond me. I understand what she is saying and i see how deep this poem is but it seems like a poem that would be written in a 6th grade classroom. The short lines and stanzas seem childish to me and not sutable for "one of America's greatest poets. " i dont know maybe this feeling comes from my hatred of poetry but i dont like it.

I do like the way it is worded and the meaning of it though. It gets through to me the point of us all inevitably dying one day. And no matter what you do you will never live forever. I like the meaning and the message of the poem. But i don't see whats so great about a poet who writes like a grade schooler.

//I know, but with advances in science and technology I don't see why i couldn't live to be 4 or 500 years old -Ricky Bobby 1202880179 // I found this to be an confusing poem. I like the way that Dickinson writes because she really makes you think. Her poems are short like in this poem, but what does she mean by death and immortality being together. Someone in my class said that it is like they are working together. I wondered how this is possible because they are to different things. But what I realized was that they are linked because once you do die don't you become immortal in heaven? When trying to understand this poem I had some trouble but after our class discussed this I kinda had an idea. 1202929479

I thought this poem had different meanings to every reader. Maybe Emilys view on death has multiple meanings. I personally think that She is saying that she does not have time to worry about death. Her life is so busy and rewarding she doesn't have time to die, she cant afford it. But, if death were to come her way she would pick it up and run with it. She doesn't see death in a negative perspective. She is not afraid to die nor does she think its a bad thing. After reading this poem i started to realize that death really isn't such a terrible thing that we make it out to be. Sure, the ending of our beautiful lives isn't exactly what we want to happen, but everyone dies and we can't help that. Eventually you and I will die and no matter how hard we try and convince ourselves we won't, our time here on earth will end. But, when we die our faith teaches us that we will go into heaven and be with all those we love including the Lord. Now does that sound so bad? To me, not at all. In fact, sometimes I wish i could just be in heaven, It would be alot easier at times. Reading that poem really made me question Death and all its scary rumors. To be honest, I am not afraid to die.

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In this poem Emily Dickinson is writting in a style that has short sentences but may have different way to interperate. At the beggining i did not undertand anything that she was saying and the wording that she used with the sentences made it very difficult to understand the message that she was trying to give in the poem. I thought that the poem was also very uniquely worded and that it should have never been edited and just kept in the original form as when she wrote it. I like the style of the she uses and the Capitalization that she puts in the poem that also makes it rare. I also like the way that she uses words that express many feelings at the same time and some of them leave the poem in an unanswered way. she likes to talk about death but does not see death as the end of the world instead she sees it as a way to live farther on and makes it seem that death comes and no matter what you do it will not wait for you. She ends the poem in a very weird way by saying that there is a house underground that is ready for her and then she explains how it will be her home for eternety. I think that she believes that the body dies but the soul or a spiritual being in us lives on and has no feelings or sence of how time works. It is very akward the way that they pass the children and they make it seem like if she was seeing the things that she missed in her own life. Then the only part that i thought may be weird was when she said that she was almost half naked and i am guessing that for people in her time to hear that is justl like if we saw some one completely naked on the streets. 1202953601hre

It still amazes me that she uses that kind of punctuation in her poems, this poem is a perfect example that differs her from all the other poets that I find unique. When my class began examining the stanzas and was expected to explain what it means, I thought i was never going to be able to understand it but as I found out what it meant by going through the classes perspective I found it very interested and oustounded that confusing stanzas for example,

Because I could not stop for Death — He kindly stopped for me — The Carriage held but just Ourselves — And Immortality.

can make sense. I learned that you shouldn't look at the poem by how it looks but by thinking about it and have different ideas from what the peom was explaining. We wrote how the stanzas explain to us in our own words and until I got to the third stanza, I didn't have any problems at all to signify what it meant. I can tell she's not afraid of death which I really like, it can be scary, but it can be looked upon as a way of a new beggining of entering God's kingdom. It's always good to look back at the good memories that people had in the past that can be remembered forever, I liked that idea too about the poem. 1202956295

When I first found out that we were going to read poems by Emily Dickinson I was really excited. I had heard that she was a really great poet, but I hadn't actually read one of her poems, so I was excited to start. The poem " Because I could not stop for Death" I enjoyed a lot, and I surprisingly didn't find it confusing or hard to understand. It was nice and short and I found it very easy to follow. This poem is talking about someone in the beginning of the poem who doesn't want to die because they have so much to do. It talks about how they get into a carriage with Death and Immortality. Later on they talk about a school yard and nature like a setting sun, To me this stanza was really neat. I thought that it was kind of showing her all of the stages of life and nature and how the day works. In the second to last stanza the person is looking at a house underground with only a roof sticking out of the ground, This house is like a tombstone. I thought that the last stanza was the most important part of the whole poem. This stanza was also my favorite one.

//Since then — 'tis Centuries — and yet Feels shorter than the Day I first surmised the Horses' Heads Were toward Eternity —//

This stanza made us rethink what was going on through out the whole poem. In this stanza the person is in heaven and already dead, they are reflecting and watching the day that they died. It also talks about how that single day was longer than all the years they spent dead. 1202967541

I believe that this poem is told from the perspective of a women who has long been deceits and is know relaying to us, the day of her death. Emily Dickinson uses a ton of symbolism in this poem. The very concept of death is portrayed as a carriage ride along a familiar street while all the world and ties to life seem to drain away into nothingness. Ms. Dickinson has an interesting view on death that I believe is important to take a good hard look at. In this poem of "I could not stop for death" it is told to us by the dead that the single last day of life was much much longer than the centuries spent under ground. Emily is interesting by right off the back saying she never wanted to die. I find this weird for someone who seems to always be talking about death. 1203044357 I think that it is very daring for Emily Dickinson to talk about death so much in her poems when deathe was such a delicate subject back in her time. It really tells you about the character of her. I really like this about her. She can talk about almost anything and make it sound like the most important and coolest thing. She goes into such detail about everything she is describing in her poems that you almost have to take a step back to even remember what she was talking about in the first place. But I definetly like this about her because she really explains things to the reader to help them understand what she's trying to say. For example she uses similes a lot. This can be helpful to the reader because they may be a bit confused about the topic that she is talking about, but the similes make it more understanding for them. I also think its pretty cool when she uses perspectives that she hasn't even experienced yet! I thought that it was pretty cool that she went and did a poem in a dead person's point of view. Although she described this certain thing (death), I sure hope that death will be a little bit happier than she describes it! 1203203692

In class, we read this poem 2 times. After reading it the first time, i interpreted it to mean that she was **dieing**, and the person expressed inside the poem was looking back at her life. Then after discussing, and reading the poem a second time, the class came to a conclusion that she was already __dead__. Emily expressed "her" dieing day, as the longest day of her life. The person in this poem has been dead for centuries, except they still reflect on their last day on earth, that it was the longest "process" she had to experience. In this poem, death is expressed as a beautiful thing; as a process worth experiencing when the time for "you" comes. Death is a time to look back at your past and reflect on your life. As human beings, we view death as a haunting; something dreadful; an ending to everything we have ever known. What we sometimes forget, i think, is that death is just one of the many experiences we encounter. As a practicing christian, i believe that there is life //after// death. Emily Dickinson makes that point/picture clear to her audience. If we fear death, we miss out on the oppertunity to look back at our past, and that is what i took from this poem. user:mje1

"Because I could not stop for Death- He kindly stopped for me-" This is a very unuasyal statement compared to how most people think of death today. When I think of death i think dark, sudden and scary. Death to me is also a very sad time. Emily Dickinson is saying the exact opposite in this poem. She talks of death in a kind, prolonging way and it is almost as if she didn't mind that she was dying.

"Since then — 'tis Centuries — and yet Feels shorter than the Day I first surmised the Horses' Heads Were toward Eternity —" Reading this last stanza pulled everything together for me. I realized that Emily Dickinson was telling the story of how she had died and now she is looking back on the experience while she is in eternity. 1203468647KCa

I really liked this poem alot because it has alot of meaning that i could decipher after a couple times reading it. Not like the others where i would be sitting there for about thirty minutes trying to understand the first stanza. It was kind of cool how she was talking about death being kind, and that even though it was bad she still was nice back and did not fight it because she knew it was her time. My favorite stanza was stanza number three beause it was the wierdest but the most interesting.

We passed the School, where Children strove At Recess — in the Ring — We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain — We passed the Setting Sun —

it kind of goes through the life cyclce of humans. We go to school as young children and play at recess. Then we grow up and work, that being symbolized by the "Gazing Grain." Then the setting sun symbolizes the end of our life. Our light being shut off, being put out. there are a few reasons i do not like reading dickinson is because she is so dark and gloomy. I mean the other day wasn't going to good for me and we came in and read this which made me feel even more sad and dissappointed.

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I thought this poem is one of the easier to understand. It was a little confusing the first time but after reading it a second or third time it became more clear. It was weird that she talked about not wanting to die but she was not afraid of it. When she died it seemed like she saw her entire life flash before her eyes and she remembered all of the good times she had. After she died she arrived at a "House" or coffin and after this she left the physical world and entered the spiritual world. 1203869943

This poem really shows how Emily Dickinson has such a unique and different style of writing than many of the other poets we have read from. Even though it is very interesting it also makes it very hard to understand or comprehend. The topic of death seems to be very popular in many of her poems all though I'm not sure why. Is it because she may have been a very dark and solemn person? Or was it just because she found the topic of death to be very interesting and fascinating? Maybe it was just a very common thing in her life for example if she had a lot of friends and family that had been dying? The first stanza starts out telling about how she is in a carriage with what she considers is a man. Although im guessing the "he" she is refering to is the death she is speaking about. The second stanza is talking about how this death was going very slow. Also she said she had put everything aside for it which I think means it enabled her from doing stuff. The third stanza is telling of happy and beautiful things like children playing, fields of grain, and a setting sun. This stanza is very interesting because although she is talking about death she still makes it seem like it isn't a bad thing. The fourth stanza is very confusing she somewhat changes what is happening and then turns death into a bad thing again. Then the fifth stanza tells of a house that they have just passed. I think that this is like a personal part of the poem that she wrote for herself. For example the house may have been her own when she was a child. The last stanza finishes by saying that it was such a long time ago but it doesn't seem that long. Then it says the horses heads faced eternity. I think this means that since she was in a carriage pulled by horses and they were going towards death, then she considers death to be an eternity. 1203883306

I like this poem more favorably then other dickenson poems because it was easy to understand. I liked the way emily took about in talking about death. Most people would view death as dark and bad, but emily described death with words such as kind, and desription that "death knew no haste" in her poem. It really makes you pay attention when a writter can look at something and take it apart in detail in ways no other person could. This is when i beleive you find a good writter, a person with talent and skill, its when they can be orginal and knew, people that have a gift of looking at such common things with a whole different prespective then the rest of the crowd. i like people that dont just believe what they hear, and emily dickenson didn't, she looked a death in quite an opposite way over most people. May favortie part of the poem that just has something to it is the first two lines, becuase i could not stop for death he kindly stoped for me. It really get you ready for a crazy poem that has the perfect balance to make it a good poem too. 1203981144

I really liked this poem. It gave an extremely interesting look on death. It made excellently different comparisons. In my mind i don't picture death as an object, i view it as a state of being. This poem shows death as an object, a kind of person. It made death as something you don't fear or celebrate, but just accept. In this poem, death comes to the narrator at a perfect time. Death in this poem is not something that is a celebration or something horrible, just a sort of understanding. When death comes to the narrator, It comes and the narrator goes with it. No words were said between death and the narrator, but they just had a sort of understanding. I hope this is the way death comes to me. I want to remember everything before i die. I believe that this is what happens. I like how Emily Dickinson makes death feel like a long meaningful day because that's what i would want it to be. Looking back on all the times we have in life makes us realize how amazing the gift of life is. I want to remember everything that happened in my life the day i die because it will make me content with the life i lived and will make me realize that it is my time to go. I enjoyed the message that Emily Dickinson sent through this poem! 1203993953

This poem is one of my favorites. Creatively done, and difficult to understand, but once we share our opinions it makes perfect sense. I love how looking at each stanza individually helps tell the story better than it just as a whole. I think that this poem was perfectly written. It talks about death again, and this interpretation is my favorite of what we have read in class so far. She talks in such great symbolism about what death is like, and how calm it is, and all the flashbacks you have. Even how centuries feel like nothing. It seems real in a weird kind of way. Overall beautifully written.

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I agree that going through each stanza really helps and makes understanding the poem so much easier. I like the discussion that we had on this poem in class. I was really into everything that everyone had to say because the poem really caught my attention. What interrested me the most about this poem was all the different perspectives that everyone had on it and the different ways they looked at it. It was as if everyone saw the poem through a different light and every time that someone said something different it brought up another point and kept things interesting. Overall, the poem and our discussion over it was great. 1204148931

I like this poem because it shows a different perspective of death. Most people think of death as the end of their journey of life. However, in this poem, Dickenson states that death is not an end of a journey, but a new beginning. In the first stanza, when she says "Because I could not stop for death- He kindly came to Me-", she is talking about how people cannot control death and the time of it. From there, she describes different scenes she passes by as Death takes her in his chariot. Also, when she talks about the gowns she is wearing, she is trying to say that no matter how rich or poor you are, at the point of death, nothing matters. Overall, the poem gave me different perspective and insights of death and Dickenson's feeling towards death. 1204224847

I really think that Emily Dickenson is such an open minded writer and she proves it here. In her poem she describes how death is the inevitable. Everyone is going to die sooner or later and it happens but you have to accept it as part of life itself. Also, Emily Dickenson goes on to explain how death and dying has no time period but is timeless. She says, "Since then — 'tis Centuries — and yet Feels shorter than the Day." I agree with npa saying that your status has abolsutely no meaning to anyone when you die. You just pass on to another phase whether it be Heaven or Hell, you are left to wonder. This poem makes me kind of wonder why we even live. What is the meaning of life? There are so many questions that are left unaswered but in the end everyone has the same fate. We are all going to die but we just don't know how or when. 1204240959

I liked this peom a lot because it gives us a a whole, better prespective of death. It makes me not feel as bad about death, not great but just a better perspective overall. I personally like the way dickinson writes better than all those other people just because she has a lot of great peoms and a lot of people know of her. She just has peoms about everything anybody in the world could relate to this witty and smart women. What ever mood people are in at any given time. She shows that she was great because she was so dedicated and it showed in her work. And how many poems she has written. This poem is about her being dead and she and death go and look at her past and this poem shows how precious life really is. This peom shows that death is there and you can die at any given time, so you need to live life to the fullest. 1204247997

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