<P> "Because I could not stop for Death" is a lyrical poem by Emily Dickinson first published posthumously in Poems: Series 1 in 1890 . The persona of Dickinson's poem meets personified Death . Death is a gentleman caller who takes a leisurely carriage ride with the speaker to her grave . According to Thomas H. Johnson's variorum edition of 1955 the number of this poem is 712 . </P> <P> The poem was published posthumously in 1890 in Poems: Series 1, a collection of Dickinson's poems assembled and edited by her friends Mabel Loomis Todd and Thomas Wentworth Higginson . The poem was published under the title "The Chariot". It is composed in six quatrains with the meter alternating between iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter . Stanzas 1, 2, 4, and 6 employ end rhyme in their second and fourth lines, but some of these are only close rhyme or eye rhyme . In the third stanza, there is no end rhyme, but "ring" in line 2 rhymes with "gazing" and "setting" in lines 3 and 4 respectively . Internal rhyme is scattered throughout . Figures of speech include alliteration, anaphora, paradox, and personification . The poem personifies Death as a gentleman caller who takes a leisurely carriage ride with the poet to her grave . She also personifies immortality . The volta (turn) happens in the fourth quatrain . Structurally, the syllables shift from its constant 8 - 6 - 8 - 6 scheme to 6 - 8 - 8 - 6 . This parallels with the undertones of the sixth quatrain . The personification of death changes from one of pleasantry to one of ambiguity and morbidity: "Or rather--He passed Us--/ The Dews drew quivering and chill --" (13--14). The imagery changes from its original nostalgic form of children playing and setting suns to Death's real concern of taking the speaker to the afterlife . </P> <Dl> <Dd> <Table> <Tr> <Th> Close transcription </Th> <Th> First published version </Th> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> <P> 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--</P> </Td> <Td> <P> THE CHARIOT 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' tis centuries; but each Feels shorter than the day I first surmised the horses' heads Were toward eternity . </P> </Td> </Tr> </Table> </Dd> </Dl>

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