Emily Dickinson (1830–86). Complete Poems. 1924.

Part Four: Time and Eternity

XXVII

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, 5

And I had put away

My labor, and my leisure too,

For his civility.

We passed the school where children played

At wrestling in a ring; 10

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, 15

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. 20