Representative Poetry Online
On this day: February 19th
Random Poem of the Day
1I felt a funeral in my brain,
2 And mourners, to and fro,
3Kept treading, treading, till it seemed
4 That sense was breaking through.
5And when they all were seated,
6 A service like a drum
7Kept beating, beating, till I thought
8 My mind was going numb.
9And then I heard them lift a box,
10 And creak across my soul
11With those same boots of lead, again.
12 Then space began to toll
13As all the heavens were a bell,
14 And Being but an ear,
15And I and silence some strange race,
Notes
16] The following stanza closes poem 280 in the existing manuscript version, The Manuscript Books of Emily Dickinson, edited by R. W. Franklin in volumes (Cambridge, Mass., and London: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1981: I, 341-42; fascicle 16; PS 1541 A1 1981 ROBA):
And then a plank in reason broke,Back to Line
And I dropped down and down
And hit a world, at every plunge,
And finished knowing, then.