of grief in its overall context. Note how Dickinson uses an image of a freezing person remembering the snow to describe how grief operates:

As freezing persons recollect the snow--
First chill, then stupor, then the letting go.

Coping with grief therefore involves the first shocking "chill" of loss, then the gradual "stupor" that this poem focuses on before the final "letting go" of that grief and the way that we carry on with our lives.

I would want to explore the imagery of this excellent poem in response to this question. What makes this poem such an accurate reflection of the experience of the body and mind going through grief is the kind of images that Dickinson employs to describe the impact of the grief on herself. We can see this in the first stanza when she describes her "nerves" as "sitting ceremonious like tombs." There is a sense of formality and ceremony in this image, but at the same time this is linked with grief and sadness as the nerves resemble tombs in the way they are presented.

The second stanza explores how grief impacts the body, and how "a quartz contentment, like a stone" descends on the body and its movements as this second stage of grief takes hold of the body. The use of the word "contenment" is an interesting one in this context, as it seems to suggest that there is something welcome about this gradual hardening of this leaden state that we enter in. Perhaps this refers to the permanence of such a state after the first volatile and emotional response to grief in the intial shock.

Lastly, the final stanza comments upon this stage of grief, calling it "the hour of lead." This again is another interesting image. We associate lead with something oppressively heavy and difficult to bear, which accurately refers to the grief that the speaker is enduring. However, the fact that it is called "the hour of lead" does lead us to believe that this is a stage and, just as hours pass, so this stage will pass to, and "the letting go" of the grief will come with time.

Although the "great pain" Dickinson refers to is ambiguous--it could be the pain of losing a loved one to death or the loss of love or friendship--she accurately describes how someone reacts to a very recent traumatizing loss.

Dickinson's metaphors create not only the atmosphere of loss but also explore, in a strikingly modern way, how the mind and body behave during the initial part of the grief process:

The nerves sit ceremonious like Tombs--/The stiff Heart questions. . . ./The Feet, mechanical, go round. . . . A Quartz movement, like a stone.

Essentially, the faculties, both mental and physical, shut down: nerves no longer carry their messages to various parts of the body; the mourner's heart feels no emotion; the body's movements are actuated as if they were part of a clock rather than a purposeful intelligence.  Dickinson has accurately detailed one important stage of grief that allows a human being to exist in the face of great emotional trauma without the brain and emotions being engaged.

The mood--created by "Tombs," "stiff Heart," "mechanical," "Wooden," and "Quartz"--is somber and, more important, expresses the numbness of mental and spiritual detachment.  In one sense, this poem is strikingly modern because Dickinson correctly describes how we often react to overwhelming grief--a defense mechanism allows us to carry on daily activities without conscious effort.

The last stanza carries the overall metaphor of unemotional grief one step farther by accurately describing how people freeze to death, another unusually modern touch:

As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow--/First--Chill--then Stupor--then the letting go--

We know that people who die by freezing experience painful cold during the first stage and then feel comfortable just before they die, and Dickinson compares a grief-stricken person's analogous reaction to loss--a grieving person feels intense pain, then numbness of body and mind, and then "the letting go."  Because the mind and body can operate like a clock, however, without the intervention of conscious effort, the grief-stricken person is able to survive.

One of the great strengths of this poem is the way in which Dickinson uses surprising and yet accurate figurative language to compare the stage of grief that this poem focuses on. Throughout the poem, the figurative language compares the "formal feeling" that is experienced after the initial onset of grief to a hardened yet formal and dignified object, that seems to speak both of the grief and sadness but also of the way in which this is something that represents the transition between the initial outburst of emotion and the final "letting go of the grief."

If we examine this carefully, we can see that the first example of figurative language is in the first stanza, which compares the nerves to tombs: "The nerves sit ceremonious like tombs." This simile bestows great dignity on the nerves whilst also comparing them to an object automatically associated with death. Similar references in the second stanza, like a "quartz contentment, like a stone," helps to consolidate this image before finally describing this stage as "the hour of lead." This is very interesting because it captures the way in which grief literally weighs us down whilst also indicating that it is just a stage and will pass. Such figurative language greatly helps create the formal and sombre mood of this poem that does offer hope at its conclusion.