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As we learn at the poem’s end, the speaker died many centuries ago, and now she’s addressing us from beyond the grave. She therefore speaks at a distant remove from the event of her death, which helps explain the poem’s overall tone of resignation. The speaker of the poem appears to have accepted her own death. She suggests as much in the opening stanza, where she refers to a personified Death as “kindly” (line 2). It may be tempting to interpret the speaker’s use of “kindly” as ironic. But this reading is undercut by two facts. First, the speaker appears to go with Death willingly. And second, the carriage ride they take together across a country landscape seems tranquil and even picturesque. Even after the sun sinks below the horizon and the speaker gets cold because her garments made of “Gossamer” and “Tulle” (lines 15 and 16) aren’t warm enough, she continues to speak about her discomfort with distinct neutrality. Dickinson reinforces this sense of neutrality through the almost perfectly regular use of common meter throughout the poem. The regularity of the meter communicates a measured and reserved quality that reflects the speaker’s resignation to her fate.

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