I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,

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.