In Emily Dickinson's "Because I Could Not Stop for Death," the atmosphere surrounding the ride begins to alter and grow colder when the carriage pauses before what the speaker recognizes as a grave.
The lighthearted tone of the poem, indicated by the speaker's mention that she has put away her "labor and leisure" for an unexpected ride, changes after the driver and the speaker pass the setting sun and the speaker grows cold and quivers with a chill. Then, as the driver approaches a "House" in the ground, the roof barely apparent, the speaker must wonder. For, it is then that the speaker begins to realize that her ride has not been spontaneous, but is ironically, gravely serious.
We paused before a House that seemed
A swelling of the Ground--
The Roof was scarcely visible--
The Cornice--in the Ground--
In the last stanza, the tone is markedly somber as the speaker narrates from the "House" in the ground that it has been ages since she first guessed that the carriage was headed to the cemetery. The repetition of the words Ground and Eternity certainly connote the serious and final destination of the carriage ride--"toward Eternity."
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