"I Felt a Funeral, in My Brain" (A Poem)

Emily Dickinson’s poem “I Felt a Funeral, in My Brain” uses a funeral as a metaphor for insanity, with the heavy-footed mourners a symbol for troubled thoughts. Since its publication in 1861, the poem has been an inspiration for a variety of other artistic works, including Will Walton’s 2018 novel I Felt a Funeral, In My Brain, where the main character grapples with the death of his grandfather, and Andrew Bird’s 2023 musical rendition of the poem.

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 – [1]

Works Referenced

Dickinson, Emily. “I Felt a Funeral, in My Brain.” The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Boston, MA: Little, Brown, and Company, 1924. 238.
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[1] Dickinson, 238.