A Toad, can die of Light –

A Toad, can die of Light –

Death is the Common Right
Of Toads and Men –
Of Earl and Midge
The privilege –
Why swagger, then?
The Gnat's supremacy is large as Thine –

Life – is a different Thing –

So measure Wine –
Naked of Flask – Naked of Cask –
Bare Rhine –
Which Ruby’s mine?

Why should an Earl swagger in pride when he will meet the same fate as a toad or a
gnat? They all will die, and “Death is the Common Right” – not a privilege. That’s the
point Dickinson is making in the first stanza of this little poem. What puzzles me is
the first line. Can toads die of light? They are nocturnal and live in damp hiding
places, so maybe so. But I doubt that Dickinson would toss out the word “light”
lightly. I suspect she means that the creepy crawly toad who can’t stand the light of
day has the same right of death as any nobleman.

The second stanza directs our attention to life. It’s not death that reveals your
quality – for every living thing must die – but rather how you live your life. Dickinson
uses wine as a metaphor: Take away the fancy bottle or flask, take away the fancy
French oak cask, and how good is your wine? How good is mine, she asks in the last
line. Am I a cheap ruby red? Or maybe a clear and easy-to-drink claret? I suspect
Dickinson would be a dry, dark red Bordeaux.
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 had put away
My labor and my leisure too,
For His Civility—

We passed the School, where Children strove

At Recess—in the Ring—
We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain—
We passed the Setting Sun—

Or rather—He passed Us—

The Dews drew quivering and chill—
For only Gossamer, my Gown—
My Tippet—only Tulle—

We paused before a House that seemed

A Swelling of the Ground—
The Roof was scarcely visible—
The Cornice—in the Ground—

Since then—'tis centuries— and yet

Feels shorter than the Day
I first surmised the Horses' Heads
Were toward Eternity—
F479 (1862) J712

There's an interesting distinction in this famous poem between Immortality, which

rides with the narrator in Death's carriage, and Eternity, which is their destination.
As a teen, Dickinson had no love of Eternity, as evidenced by a letter she wrote to her
friend Abiah Root: "Does not Eternity appear dreadful to you? I often get thinking of
it and it seems so dark to me that I almost wish there was no Eternity" (L 10).
The poem seems to echo this early dread. Death is welcome, particularly coming as
a gentleman caller rather than as the Grim Reaper. He was "kindly" and drove
"slowly," giving his passenger time to review the mortal life she was leaving behind.
That Immortality was also a passenger caused no alarm. It, too, was a passenger and
served as a chaperone. In fact, without Immortality, there would have been no
conscious narrator; Death would have obliterated consciousness upon his arrival. So
Immortality was a welcome companion for this gentle, farewell journey to the grave.
The poem leaves us paused at the grave (perhaps – Dickinson leaves the narrator's
vantage point purposefully ambiguous), the "House that seemed / A Swelling of the
Ground," for "centuries." In what seems to me a sad coda, the poet adds that even
those centuries of pause seem shorter than when she realized her consciousness was
not destined for the oblivion of the tomb. There is an undertone of betrayal: the
kindly gentleman caller was not going to leave her in an everlasting sleep; his horses
were headed to eternity.
The last stanza gives us no reason to think that the poet's early dread of eternity
wasn't warranted. It may be the infinite but not unpleasant tedium of waiting in the
grave, as Dickinson described in other poems. In "Safe in their alabaster chambers,"
for example, the "meek members of the Resurrection" wait while up above "Worlds
scoop their Arcs – / And firmaments – row" (F124). It's a comfortable enough image,
as is the tomb where Truth chats with Beauty until the moss silenced them