Because I Could Not Stop for Death

Natalie Merchant

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

We passed the school where children played
At wrestling in a ring

We passed the fields of gazing grain,
We passed the setting sun

We paused before a house that seemed
A swelling in 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

Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me
The carriage held but just ourselves

And Immortality