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2.2.8.6: I heard a fly buzz when I died

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    I heard a fly buzz when I died

    I heard a fly buzz when I died License: Public Domain Emily Dickinson

    I heard a fly buzz when I died;

    The stillness round my form

    Was like the stillness in the air

    Between the heaves of storm.

    The eyes beside had wrung them dry,

    And breaths were gathering sure

    For that last onset, when the king

    Be witnessed in his power.

    I willed my keepsakes, signed away

    What portion of me I

    Could make assignable,—and then

    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.

    This page titled 2.2.8.6: I heard a fly buzz when I died is shared under a CC BY-SA 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Anita Turlington, Matthew Horton, Karen Dodson, Laura Getty, Kyounghye Kwon, Georgia, & Laura Ng (GALILEO Open Learning Materials) via source content that was edited to the style and standards of the LibreTexts platform; a detailed edit history is available upon request.