I read a blog post the other day referring to Emily Dickinson as “the fiery redheaded poet”. I found that odd, as I never thought of Dickinson of being all that fiery. Interesting and complex, yes. But not fiery….I think it’s the pictures of her with the bun thing going on. It’s hard to be fiery when you’re dressed up like a school marm.

One of the things that always saddened me about Dickinson was that very few of her poems were published during her lifetime, and those that were published were usually edited in order to fit in with the poetic conventions of the day. I always wondered what Emily’s sister Lavinia thought when she discovered the cache of her elder sister’s poetry. (And how cool is that to have written so many poems that they’re considered a cache? My descendants will have to content themselves with finding a few post-it notes of writings.)

This is my favorite poem of hers. No surprise that it’s about death…Emily was the Joy Division/Smiths/Cure of the 1800’s.

Because I Could Not Stop For Death

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 labour, 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.