This poem will never leave my brain, because I had to memorize and recite it for a class. Emily Dickinson’s writing has multiple meanings, especially this poem. “I felt a funeral in my brain” has a movement to it where the repetition of words brings the poem to life when you read it. Dickinson’s poems are often melancholic and dark, but that doesn’t prohibit them from having a deep and meaningful purpose.
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 –
Featured image courtesy of https://bit.ly/2efxL0l