Three Words

The poem 479/712 by Emily Dickenson is widely popular among critics today because of its form, imagery and theme. Three words that seem particularly significant to this poem are death, passed and eternity.

Death is a very significant word within this poem despite the fact that it appears only once. Death is the overarching theme of this poem and is personified as a gentleman with superb manners and character. The speaker relates that on their busy and never-resting journey of life, death courteously stopped by to whisk her away on a delightful and leisurely ride through time and space.

Passed is the second word that seems immensely important to this poem, not only because it appears four times in the short work, but also because it deals with time, a theme that runs throughout the whole poem. In the first line the speaker states that in life she is too busy to even stop for death. Time continues regardless of an individual’s needs or condition. However, even after death time continues to carry on. The travelling pair passes through the world of the living no longer aware of the time it takes to traverse distances. In death, time passes by as a scene of a movie. A few moments can represent years, lifetimes, even centuries.

The word eternity is not mentioned until the very end of the poem. The traveling duo is still passing through time but the passenger sees things differently at this point. Centuries have passed and yet it seemed that it had been only a single day since she began this journey with death. She now realizes that there is not a destination for which they are heading. The “horses’ heads / Were toward Eternity” and that was the true destination. She had already arrived when she stepped into the carriage and she would continue on the everlasting tranquil voyage toward it for as long as her soul will last.