A wilted pale flower rests on an empty wooden chair in a softly lit blue room.

Original artwork, not a still

Emily Dickinson

Because I could not stop for Death– He kindly stopped for me

Behind the line

What it means

Our interpretation.

The speaker says she was too busy to make time for death, so death courteously came to collect her instead. The lines treat mortality as a polite caller rather than a terror, gently ironic about how life's busyness cannot hold off the inevitable.

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