Because I Could Not Stop for Death

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 labour, 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.

The poetess talks about life and its aspects through images. The syntax of the poem is clearly shown throughout the whole poem. The poetess uses symbols along with the images. Moreover, the theme is being presented in the poem.
The poetess uses an image of a person she calls Death in its carriage to show that the life has its end. She also describes how death is not a bed thing and that it is even kind. She talks about death like it’s only a beginning. When the poetess starts talking about the drive in the carriage, she mostly describes a person’s life and what they go through. The drive in the carriage represents the flow of life. She is looking at it from the side, it could be an image for memory when people look back at their lives, but remember as it happened to somebody else but not them. The image of the house may be talking about a close end of life – the drive. The poetess talks how the ground was a little swelled. It can mean a few things. First is that the person is dying of some disease and that is why death looks like an escape. Second is that by the end of life a person creates a swelling of it’s memories and actions and puts it into one place. The last stanza stands for the actual death towards which the person was going. The poetess describes how life maybe so long, but it feels like an only moment as one breath.
The theme of the poem is about the journey of life. A life that was fulfilled with memories. A person that the poetess is describing seems very grateful through the time he spent living.