I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,

By Emily Dickinson I felt a Funeral, in my Brain, And Mourners to and fro Kept treading - treading - till it seemed That Sense was breaking through -

And when they all were seated, A Service, like a Drum - Kept beating - beating - till I thought My mind was going numb -

And then I heard them lift a Box And creak across my Soul With those same Boots of Lead, again, Then Space - began to toll,

As all the Heavens were a Bell, And Being, but an Ear, And I, and Silence, some strange Race, Wrecked, solitary, here -

And then a Plank in Reason, broke, And I dropped down, and down - And hit a World, at every plunge, And Finished knowing - then -

Copyright Credit: Reprinted by permission of the publishers and the Trustees of Amherst College from The Poems of Emily Dickinson: Variorum Edition, Ralph W. Franklin, ed., Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, © 1998 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. © 1951, 1955, 1979, 1983 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Permission conveyed through Copyright Clearance Center, Inc. Source: The Poems of Emily Dickinson: Variorum Edition (Harvard University Press, 1983)