Because I Could Not Stop for Death

Emily Dickinson’s trademark dashes create the poem’s rhythm and emphasize important words and ideas. Take, for example, the line, “My Tippet — only Tulle —” (Line 16). The dash after “tippet” (a scarf-like shawl worn over a dress) creates a pause called a caesura in the middle of the line. The following phrase, “only Tulle,” therefore stands out after this pause. The phrase notes the flimsiness of this material, tulle, amidst the dark and cold the speaker experiences.

Like many of Dickinson’s poems, “Because I could not stop for Death” employs the formal qualities of the hymns the poet knew with from attending a Calvinist Christian church. Like those hymns, the poem consists of quatrains (stanzas of four poetic lines). In fact, the reader can sing “Because I could not stop for Death” to the tune of the hymn “Amazing Grace.”

The poem’s meter is consistent with the poetic form of the ballad. Each quatrain (except the fourth, which inverts the pattern) begins with an eight-syllable line, followed by a six-syllable line, then eight, then six. These lines are also iambic: If every syllable is a “beat,” the rhythm begins with an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable.