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--)

I put the last stanza in paranthesis as it is omitted in a lot of versions of this poem.