"This is perhaps Emily Dickinson's best-known poem. She personifies the character of death and then dramatizes the experience: Death is portrayed as a genteel friend who "kindly" stops to take to her grave." .
Style :.
- 6 stanzas, 4-lines each.
- Traditional meter, often found in hymns and nursery rhymes.
- Iambic pentameter.
Analysis: .
Lines 1-2- Death is greatly personified in these lines. Figuratively, this woman has a "date with death." Death seems to be gentlemen that may be handsome and well groomed, who makes a call at the home of a young woman. Death "kindly" comes to get her, knowing that she keeps herself busy. 2.
Lines 3-4- The third passenger in the coach is a silent, mysterious stranger. Immortality rides with them and is also personified with the capitalization of the "i." 2.
Line 5- Possible explanation s for the slow speed Death drives the carriage are: the woman is "dead," and the carriage "has been transformed into a hearse" and is slow like the lead car in a funeral procession; Death does not have any concept of earthly concerns like time and space. 2.
Lines 6-8- People spend most of their lives trying to keep busy so they would not have to think about their death. Unlike most people, the speaker is willing to set aside her earthly duties and goes with death. She comments on his "Civility," or formal politeness. She also seems to be seduced by his good manners. 2.
Lines 9-12- This stanza is filled with massive imagery. Although she "put away" her "labor" and "leisure" stated in the previous quatrain, she is still distracted by the mortal world. She begins to see many things that she has rarely noticed before: children playing, wheat growing, and "the setting sun." She might have taken life for granted. She notices children are playing" in a ring." The ring is symbolic of eternity. The "field of grazing grain" represents the nature in her eyes. The "setting sun" is the universal clock, which measure peoples" lives on earth.
