The narrative starts with Death, who is personified as a chariot driver. He picks up the speaker from her house and takes her on a pleasant ride in his carriage. They ride past many places, from the schoolyard to the fields full of grains, until they finally reach their destination, the speaker’s grave site.
In the beginning of the poem, it seems as though the speaker is recounting the events of a single day. This day passes quickly in the poem. At the start of her journey with Death, the speaker passes the school full of children enjoying recess. A few lines later, the carriage is passing the “Setting Sun,” indicating that the day is over and night has begun. This detail helps to mark the rapid passage of time. In contrast, the pacing of the narrative is leisurely and unhurried. The point of this contrast between the pacing and the passage of time may be to demonstrate that the speaker has crossed over into immortality. This idea is emphasized again in the final stanza, when the speaker says that centuries have passed since the events of the day she’s describing. The poem can be read as the speaker juxtaposing her journey in regular time (one day) with infinite time, which she attains once she dies.
From the poem "Because I Could Not Stop for Death" by Emily Dickinson...
Answer to the First Question: The speaker describes in the narrative her short trip alongside what she considers to be a male individual - presumably the Death itself -. The speaker presumes the little journey felt like a day to her, but it actually took centuries. The pacing of the narrative goes relatively quick compared to the real time stated by the reader (centuries), given that she mentioned what one would commonly see on a daily routine along the road (i.e. A school, grain fields, and the sunset).
Answer to the Second Question: The speaker means to express how lightly she takes death (Felt like a day) by comparing it with the patience requiered to endure daily life (Centuries to her). In other words, she considers daily life to be a never-ending routine.
This is evidenced by the quote "I surmised the Horses' heads were toward eternity", assuming the horses pulling the carriage would have taken her through the sight of her daily life over and over again.
