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By Emily Dickinson
via the Poetry Foundation

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 -

A Note from the Editor
S.J. Fowler (SJF): “The impossible described, or the most miraculous attempt at that. Dickinson is so profound on the mind / brain and consciousness. She is almost creating a nomenclature for saying what can’t be said before it can’t be said.”

Rebecca Kamen (RK): “Having researched neuroscience as an artist, reading Dickinson’s poem made me realize the significance of the brain in processing the complexity and richness of all life experience, including the process of Death.”

To learn more about April’s Poem of the Day guest editors and their collaboration, read our April 2024 editors’ blog post.

^{Source: *The Poems of Emily Dickinson: Variorum Edition (Harvard University Press, 1983)}

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kastelpls

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I felt a Funeral, in my Brain, (340)