I felt a funeral in my brain
I felt a funeral in my brain
Original Text
Poems (1890-1896) by Emily Dickinson: A Facsimile Reproduction of the Original Volumes Issued in 1890, 1891, and 1896, with an Introduction by George Monteiro (Gainesville, Florida: Scholars' Facsimiles).
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.
Publication Start Year
1896
Publication Notes
1947 (last stanza).
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
RPO 1997
Form