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The Golden Treasury of American Songs and Lyrics

by Frederic Lawrence Knowles

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The Chariot

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 played,
 Their lessons scarcely done;
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.

E. Dickinson.

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