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Imagery in Because I Could Not Stop for Death

Imagery Examples in Because I Could Not Stop for Death:

Text of the Poem

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"The cornice but a mound...."   (Text of the Poem)

In Dickinson’s original draft of the poem, this line reads as “The Cornice — in the Ground —,” which is an altogether different image. A cornice is a concave feature below a roof or ceiling. The image of a cornice constituting a mound makes little sense. The cornice in ground, however, conveys the notion of a house buried deep in the ground, presumably due to the passage of time. This is a case in which Loomis Todd and Higginson’s edits are notably damaging to the original intention of the poem.

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