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Emily Dickinson, “I felt a Funeral, in my Brain”

Many of Dickinson’s poems explore themes related to death. Admittedly, “I felt a Funeral, in my Brain” is only metaphorically about death. However, like “Because I could not stop for Death,” this poem attempts to imagine what lies beyond the boundaries of human reason, and which is therefore essentially unknowable.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls”

Longfellow was a contemporary of Dickinson, and just as she read the work of many of her other peers, she read his work as well. Although in general their poetry couldn’t be more different in style and theme, these two poems do share a powerful thematic interest in the enigma of existence.

Dylan Thomas, “Do not go gentle into that good night”

Thomas penned this villanelle almost a century after Dickinson wrote “Because I could not stop for Death.” Even so, they make an interesting pair to consider together. Whereas Dickinson’s poem approaches the subject of death in a measured and even resigned way, Thomas’s poem famously “rage[s] against the dying of the light.”

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