Remembering Emily Dickinson on her birthday

Emily Dickinson was born on December 10, 1830, in Amherst, Massachusetts. She was known as a recluse, and although close friends knew of her writing, most of her poems were written in private and only seen after her death. She wrote nearly 1,800 poems in her lifetime. This is one of the most famous.

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 labor, and my leisure too,
For his civility.

We passed the school, where children strove
At recess, in the ring;
We passed the fields of gazing grain,
We passed the setting sun.

Or rather, he passed us;
The dews grew quivering and chill,
For only gossamer my gown,
My tippet only tulle.

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, and yet each
Feels shorter than the day
I first surmised the horses' heads
Were toward eternity.

[This version is from: Thomas H. Johnson in The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Miss Dickinson left behind several versions of the poem.]

PS Sorry, I'm not sure why I misspelled her name. It looked a little odd. I guess I was mixing it with Dickens. Oh, well. Fortunately my Kindle (which has a picture of her and her name on its screen saver told me so). :)