Emily Dickinson

 I haven't told my garden yet- by Emily Dickinson

I haven't told my garden yet --
Lest that should conquer me.
I haven't quite the strength now
To break it to the Bee --

I will not name it in the street
For shops would stare at me --
That one so shy -- so ignorant
Should have the face to die.

The hillsides must not know it --
Where I have rambled so --
Nor tell the loving forests
The day that I shall go --

Nor lisp it at the table --
Nor heedless by the way
Hint that within the Riddle
One will walk today 

To me, this seems like sarcasm. She is almost mocking her place in the world. 

In class, we read a poem about how death was always coming and was not preventable. We also read her writing 

about how she thought of death as a carriage to eternity. She doesn't know if there is an afterlife, but she knows she

will be dying. It sounds like she is hinting that there is an afterlife in this poem, but not that there is a supreme being.

I agree with her though on the thought that death is a riddle.