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—
F340
(1862) 280
This is
one of Dickinson’s most famous poems, typically (and soundly, I believe)
interpreted as dissecting a mental breakdown.
The poet’s physical body is
treated metaphorically as funeral attendees and her aware self as the
consciousness trapped helplessly within the funeral event. The consciousness
feels under assault by “Boots of Lead” and a service that “like a Drum— / Kept
beating—beating” until she felt her mind numbing. Interestingly, here as in “If
your Nerve, deny you” Dickinson locates herself as somewhere other than her
mind or her soul, for she not only feels her mind “going numb,” but hears a
heavy coffin creaking “across my Soul.”
I have never had a migraine,
but those who have or who work with migraine sufferers claim the poem is a very
good description of the pulsing, skull-filling pain that makes every noise
painful if not excruciating. Indeed, some of the major imagery in the poem
involves sound: there is the funeral service that beats and beats like a drum, the
creaking of the heavy coffin carried across her soul, and the tolling of space
“As [if] all the Heavens were a Bell.” In fact, the poet’s existence is reduced
to being nothing but an “Ear.”
Whether describing a migraine
or a breakdown (or perhaps both), though, the poet’s aware self (that which
encompasses and observes both mind and soul) is experiencing something very
much like torture. The poem is one long single sentence connected with thirteen
“and”s and additional implied ones as in “treading—treading” and
“beating—beating.” The slow pace heightens the pain. It is very hard to read
the poem in anything other than the dragging pace of a funeral.
When Dickinson writes that the mourners kept
treading through her brain in the leaden boots until “Sense was breaking
through” she says two things: the actual physical sensations described have
broken through into the brain itself as if it were a floor beneath the feet,
and that her conscious senses were being broken—falling through the floor of
the brain. This latter image sets up the last stanza when a “Plank in Reason”
breaks and her aware self drops “down, and down” until ultimately it loses all
knowledge and awareness.
The
fourth stanza is quite strange. The painful and pulsing noises become so
overpowering that the poet finds herself in an altered state: “All the Heavens”
become a “Bell” ringing with sound, while “Being” is reduced to being nothing
but an ear. Her aware self, the “I,” is “Wrecked” there. It’s a frightening and
utterly lonely image. There is no bedroom or bed, no loved ones, no
window—nothing to grasp in any way that might help the sufferer hold on to
reality.
She does
have a companion, however: “Silence.” This companion, wrecked and “solitary”
with the poet’s aware self, is completely unexpected after all the merciless
and excruciating pain. It makes sense as a “yoked opposite” —a term one
Dickinson scholar has used to describe many of Dickinson’s images and phrases.
When Being has been reduced to nothing but an ear and the heavens to a bell,
the “strange Race” of Silence is necessarily a (silent) companion. It is as
necessary as shadow to sun, as present as the existence of pain to the
experience of joy. **
But the
aware self cannot maintain this terrible quietus for long. In one of her
strongest images, Dickinson has a “Plank in Reason” breaking. This image not
only recalls the mourners treading back and forth across the floor, but
suggests that there is a floor to our sanity, something that holds our sense of
self and sanity together. But this has broken and so the poet’s self drops
“down, and down” to unknowable places—a “World, at every plunge.” From the
funereal pace of the previous four stanzas, Dickinson catapults us here to
almost the speed of light. The word “plunge” not only denotes a forceful speed,
but an almost willful act as that of a diver leaping from a cliff to plummet
into a pool below. But in this case the self is out of control, careening
downward from world to world as if there are different levels of subconscious
realities that bear little resemblance to the everyday world we are familiar
with.
The
final line, when “knowing” is finished, comes as an almost welcome and relief.
Rest is finally achieved, both physical and mental. Dickinson is a poet who
famously charts her conscious awareness far beyond the grave, and s this
finishing of knowing is strikingly final.
** Addition: I was just rereading Elizabeth Barrett Browning's poem "A Vision of Poets" where a poet has been lead through trials to see a heavenly apparition of the great and long-dead poets. He is then shown an angel making a divine music that so rouses the spirits of the poet-listeners that "when it ceased, the blood which fell [from gaps where the poets' hearts once were], / Again, alone grew audible, / Tolling the silence as a bell."
I'd like to re-write my whole commentary based on the insights from this poem, but instead will be content with saying that Dickinson's great Silence is calling on, among other things, Browning's ecstatic image of the poets' heart blood tolling like a bell.
