Please write an interpretation of the poem "Because I Could Not Stop for Death."

Emily Dickinson's poem "Because I Could Not Stop for
Death" is an exploration of the realization that the coming of death is a prolonged but
continuous process that usually passes unheeded, since Death is from the outset a
gentlemanly caller. Dickinson also suggests that Death is not without compensation
because he travels in company with Immortality, a goal sought by most as being of great
value.

During the course of the poem, Dickinson takes the
reader on an excursion past monuments of living and life's cycle: the children at
recess; "gazing grain," with full grown mature heads of grain so as to be "gazing"; the
setting sun which passes the poetic speaker and Death in the carriage. The title implies
the inevitability of the journey described in the poem: Even if life's labors and
leisures are so appealing that you cannot stop for Death, whether in youth, the prime of
life (as the poetic speaker is, fully engaged and lightly dressed as she is), or old
age, Death, always the courteous gentleman, will stop for
you.

While Dickinson takes the reader on this journey, she
also takes them on a correlated journey, one that progresses through life. Labors and
leisures indicate the adult life while the gossamer gown and tulle tippet (shoulder
shawl) indicate the advancing frailty of the flesh. Children of course indicate youth
and the grain can be seen to indicate the progress of growing and maturing in life. The
sun of day, living and life-force passes by the rider and the reader bringing chill dews
of evening and the failing of the powers of life, making the gossamer (thin shimmery
silk) gown and the tulle (delicately netted silk) tippet inadequate to the further task
at hand.

The final destination is a burial mound, "The
Cornice--in the Ground--". The poetic speaker now reveals herself to be speaking from
eternity, the friend of Immortality, having been gone for "Centuries," and now sharing a
flashback reminiscence of the day she first "surmised the Horse's Heads / Were toward
Eternity," in other words, the day on which she realized her immediate (or eventual)
journey was toward death.