I Felt a Funeral, in My Brain
I Felt a Funeral, in My Brain - context Summary
Composed in 1861
Composed in 1861 and published posthumously in 1890, this poem stages an interior crisis as if it were a funeral inside the speaker’s mind. Dickinson uses the ritual of mourning—mourners, a drumming service, a coffin—to map progressive loss of sensation, reason, and identity until cognition "Finished knowing." The poem reflects the poet’s focus on death, aftermath, and psychological limits, offering a compressed allegory of mental collapse or existential annihilation rather than a literal scene. Its compressed narrative traces escalation from perception to final cessation of knowing.
Read Complete AnalysesI 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–
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