Could you please help me with this poem as far as translating figurative and symbolic into literal. I need help in making clear the idea in this poem
Thanks

Most obvious here is Death- she has personified him, but in reality, he is old age, disease, whatever a person dies from.

The carriage could be the coffin (or not, I'm open on this one.)

What you need to do is think- what actually happens- is this a funeral? What is the house?

pam


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, 5
And I had put away
My labor, and my leisure too,
For his civility.

We passed the school where children played
At wrestling in a ring; 10
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, 15
The cornice but a mound.

Since then ’t is centuries; but each
Feels shorter than the day
I first surmised the horses’ heads
Were toward eternity.

I don't follow all of it (as is usual both for me in general and when reading Emily), but the first stanza seems to say she was very busy in her life, and had no time to ruminate on death. Obviously untrue for this author, since she seems to have positively obsessed about it, but let that go. The author is not necessarily the speaker, doncha know. Even though she had no time for death, it came for her anyway, as it will for us all.

She personifies death as a civil gentleman. Nothing to be afraid of here; no need for panic or trepidation about the meeting. Skipping to the last stanza, she feels that, once dead, there will be eternal life (eternity). The day of death is the longest, because of having to cope with the fear we feel. The middle stanzas I find confusing, but they could simply imply she is looking back on scenes in her life. Could also be the often-mentioned flashbacks as one is dying, life's events flashing before the eyes.

Looking again, I think it's her funeral- the low house in stanza 4 is her grave, the scenes in 2 and 3 are on the way to the cemetery.

pam

Makes sense, but I wonder why they would pause there, instead of stopping. And passing the setting sun is strange as well, although they could just have travelled until dark.

Quick, for $64k, what three famous poems mention the word 'darkling'?

Thrush, Thomas Hardy

Plane, Matthew Arnold

and Kipling?

The First Chantey
by Rudyard Kipling

Mine was the woman to me, darkling I found her;
Haling her dumb from the camp, took her and bound her.
Hot rose her tribe on our track ere I had proved her;
Hearing her laugh in the gloom, greatly I loved her.



Les

Drat - there must be four! Or, is it five? I was thinking of Keats's Nightingale for the 3rd:

[www.bartleby.com]

[...]

Darkling I listen; and, for many a time
I have been half in love with easeful Death,
Call'd him soft names in many a musèd rhyme,
To take into the air my quiet breath;

[...]

I had Dover Beach and Darkling Thrush for the other two.

I think you're saved by your defining them as 'famous.' I don't think I've seen the Kipling.

pam

"Makes sense, but I wonder why they would pause there, instead of stopping. And passing the setting sun is strange as well, although they could just have travelled until dark."

reply:
if you think of one day (sunrise to sunset) as a lifetime, sunrise may represent birth and sunset may represent death.
Also, based on this- the sun rises in the east and sets in the west.

As far as the rest of the poem I agree with most everything that's been said. In the third stanza I believe that it is representing youth, middle age and old-age (children in school=youth, gazing grain=middle age, setting sun=old age, death, etc.)

I agree completely with stanza 4 being her visiting the grave. I didn't get this at first, but I've read that theory a few places and after rereading it, I have to agree.

This reply probably is a little late and not helpful but I just thought I would contribute.