In "Because I could not stop for death" by Emily Dickinson, what does she mean in her description that begins, "We paused before a House"?

Remember that this whole poem is an extended metaphor.  Dickinson uses a ride in a carriage (or a journey) to symbolize death.  However, she does not maintain the dark, gruesome tone associated with most death poems.  Her whimsical attitude toward death enables her to portray her ride past everyday, cheerful aspects of human life.  When she writes,

We paused before a House that seemed
A Swelling of the Ground--
The Roof was scarcely visible--
The Cornice--in the Ground--

her whimsical tone continues.  The "House" that swells in the ground is the mound from a grave; the roof is the headstone, and the description of the cornice being in the ground means that the grave is the actual house of the entombed; so only the roof (tombstone) is visible above the earth.