This poem is a metaphor for the series of emotions one would experience after loosing someone very dear.

The poem builds on the formality of these feelings; while these emotions may be felt very deeply, there is a certain amount of form, or structure, to them. Because these feelings are almost expected, they become somewhat ceremonious, and become more of the outward appearance of the person. This ties in well with the last line in which we see a progression of these formalities.

The nerves are personified, in the simile given here, with the grave. This that continues the idea of the rigidity that follows bearing great pain. (Prof. Abrahamson)

The reference to the stiff heart actually refers to the mourning, not the deceased. This line points to the questioning of the divine intervention in life. It asks if God was the one who took the loved one away. (Prof. Abrahamson)

The commas on either side separate that bore from the rest of the poem, distinctly showing the increasing anger of the mourner. Bore also refers to the void left by someone's death. This also parallels the feeling that perhaps God does not exist in the mourner's heart because they are so angry at Him.

This line, as with the rest of the poem, contains a lot of figurative language. While Emily Dickinson has used metaphor and simile, here the feet is listing synecdoche - a rhetorical figure by which the whole of a thing is put for a part, or a part for a whole. The feet here are actually the hands of a clock, going round. It makes a point that while one might only focus on the hands of a clock, they are actually part of a larger mechanism. This is also a metaphor for how humans stumble around in a cloud of confusion which is mechanical because it is expected, but are experiencing life as a whole by experiencing death. (Prof. Abrahamson)

Nothing, or anything. (Stallworthy) The O also symbolizes the clock image in line 5. That while we are all part of a larger plan, we are therefore a part of both nothing and something.

While wood represents the image of a coffin, the line is strategically placed in the middle of this verse, as well as the poem. In fact, it extends the second verse, whereas the other two verses only have four lines each. While wooden shows not only the emotional stiffness of the mourner as well as the physical stiffness of the deceased it also shows the dullness - the redundancy - of this mechanical experience. It points out the redundancy of the feelings as well as the passing of time.

Regardless of how long or much a person experiences these emotions, they are felt with literally, a deadened heaviness. This feeling is carried through to the next verse in line 10, which shows physically how the emotion is carried around.

Dickinson makes a point that if you get thru this experience, it's like a person dying; freezing up with rigomortus.

She compares the formal feeling of experiencing loss to the series of feelings a person who was freezing would feel about show. The dashes, as throughout the rest of the poem, shows a long pause, making you rest on each word, thereby showing further the mechanical clockwork of mourning. Interestingly enough, this poem has thirteen lines: while a clock has twelve hours always seen on its face, there is a redundancy in that you repeat the hours (as you do feelings about loss) two times a day. The thirteenth line shows the combination of these feelings.

You either get destroyed by your grief or you get over your grief, much like a freezing person either dies or eventually warms up. (Prof. Abrahamson)