John Coolidge Adams - Because I Could Not Stop for Death

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 put away
My labor, and my leisure too
For his civility

We passed the school where children played
At wrestling in a ring;
We passed the fields of gazing grain
We passed the setting sun

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; but each
Feels shorter than the day
I first surmised the horses’ heads
Were toward eternity