"Because I could not stop for Death" is a lyrical poem by Emily Dickinson first published posthumously in Poems: Series 1 in 1890. Dickinson's work was never authorized to be published so it is unknown whether Because I could not stop for Death was completed or "abandoned". The speaker of Dickinson's poem meets personified Death. Death is a gentleman who is riding in the horse carriage that picks up the speaker in the poem and takes the speaker on her journey to the afterlife. According to Thomas H. Johnson's variorum edition of 1955 the number of this poem is "712".
712: Because I could not stop for Death —
The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson (1960)
Context: 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 —
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712: Because I could not stop for Death —
The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson (1960)
