The Chariot
The Chariot - meaning Summary
Death as Courteous Companion
Dickinson imagines Death as a polite companion who stops for the speaker and carries her, with Immortality, on a slow carriage ride. They pass scenes of life — children, fields, the setting sun — then pause before a house that suggests a grave. The poem calmly frames dying as a gradual transition rather than a violent end, turning a personal encounter into a meditation on time, memory, and the movement toward eternity.
Read Complete AnalysesBecause 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.
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