Academy of American Poets
View Cart | Log In 
Subscribe | More Info 
Find a Poet or Poem
Advanced Search >
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Emily Dickinson
Emily Dickinson
Born in 1830 in Massachusetts, Emily Dickinson lived in almost total physical isolation from the outside world and is now linked with Walt Whitman as founders of a unique American poetic voice...
More >
Want more poems?
Subscribe to our
Poem-A-Day emails.
FURTHER READING
Related Poems
House or Window Flies
by John Clare
Related Prose
Easy Poet Costume Ideas
Groundbreaking Book: The Complete Poems 1850-1870 by Emily Dickinson (1960)
My Favorite Poet: Emily Dickinson
by Michael Ryan
Sponsor a Poet Page | Add to Notebook | Email to Friend | Print

I heard a Fly buzz (465)

 
by Emily Dickinson

I heard a Fly buzz – when I died –  
The Stillness in the Room
Was like the Stillness in the Air –  
Between the Heaves of Storm – 

The Eyes around – had wrung them dry –  
And Breaths were gathering firm
For that last Onset – when the King
Be witnessed – in the Room –  

I willed my Keepsakes – Signed away
What portions of me be
Assignable – and then it was
There interposed a Fly –  

With Blue – uncertain stumbling Buzz –  
Between the light – and me –  
And then the Windows failed – and then
I could not see to see – 






Poetry used by permission of the publishers and the Trustees of Amherst College from The Poems of Emily Dickinson, Ralph W. Franklin ed., Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Copyright © 1998 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Copyright © 1951, 1955, 1979, by the President and Fellows of Harvard College.
Larger TypeLarger Type | Home | Help | Contact Us | Privacy Policy Copyright © 1997 - 2013 by Academy of American Poets.