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I don't know beans about poetry, Max, and Emily Dickinson is way beyond me. I don't see how her words could be changed without hurting the poetry. She was something special, and had a license to break rules.
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Death = the act
"I" = the person meeting the Act of dying
Immortality = the transformation after death (i.e., what's to come)
The poem makes sense to me as written.
From the other side,
WordWraith
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Dear Max: It just doesn't read as well if either is taken out. But is by itself not a very strong word. Just is stronger I'm sure she used both because she liked the effect. It sounds right to me as poetry.
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I've never read the poem so I cannot comment on her poetic license to write it that way.
If I read it straight out, without considering the source, it sounds incorrect. "none but" would sound better. "just ourselves ..." is o.k., however "but just" ...definitely redundant.
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stranger
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stranger
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Hello,
My thoughts on this: I think the grammatical inaccuracy reduces the pride of the line. "None but ourselves and immortality" sounds more proud than "but just ourselves and immortality." Simplicity is added to the line through colloquial usage.
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old hand
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old hand
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I've never read the poem
Have a look:
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.
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