I heard a Fly buzzwhen I died...

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 portion 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

Summary

The speaker says that she heard a fly buzz as she lay on her deathbed. The
room was as still as the air between the Heaves of a storm. The eyes around
her had cried themselves out, and the breaths were firming themselves for that
last Onset, the moment when, metaphorically, the King / Be witnessedin the
Room. The speaker made a will and Signed away / What portion of me be /
Assignable and at that moment, she heard the fly. It interposed itself With
blueuncertain stumbling Buzz between the speaker and the light; the
Windows failed; and then she died (I could not see to see).

Form
I heard a Fly buzz employs all of Dickinsons formal patterns: trimeter and
tetrameter iambic lines (four stresses in the first and third lines of each stanza,
three in the second and fourth, a pattern Dickinson follows at her most formal);
rhythmic insertion of the long dash to interrupt the meter; and an ABCB rhyme
scheme. Interestingly, all the rhymes before the final stanza are half-rhymes
(Room/Storm, firm/Room, be/Fly), while only the rhyme in the final stanza is a full
rhyme (me/see). Dickinson uses this technique to build tension; a sense of true
completion comes only with the speakers death.

Commentary

One of Dickinsons most famous poems, I heard a Fly buzz strikingly describes
the mental distraction posed by irrelevant details at even the most crucial
momentseven at the moment of death. The poem then becomes even weirder
and more macabre by transforming the tiny, normally disregarded fly into the
figure of death itself, as the flys wing cuts the speaker off from the light until she
cannot see to see. But the fly does not grow in power or stature; its final
severing act is performed With Blueuncertain stumbling Buzz. This poem is
also remarkable for its detailed evocation of a deathbed scenethe dying
persons loved ones steeling themselves for the end, the dying woman signing
away in her will What portion of me be / Assignable (a turn of phrase that
seems more Shakespearean than it does Dickinsonian).

ANYLISIS

Emily Dickinson did not give titles to most of her poems. They are usually
labeled by their first lines, and her modern editor, Thomas H. Johnson, has
numbered them according to his conclusions about their order of composition
(this poem is numbered 465). Publications of the poem before Johnsons The
Poems of Emily Dickinson (1955) are usually of the text as it was altered by
Mabel Loomis Todd when she published Poems: Third Series (1896).
I heard a Fly buzzwhen I died consists of four stanzas, with Dickinsons
characteristic slant-or near-rhymes in the second and fourth lines of each
quatrain. The first-person speaker of the poem is at some remove from
Dickinsons lyric voice; these words come from beyond the grave. Dickinson
wrote a number of poems from this point of view; perhaps the most famous is
Because I could not stop for Death (poem 712). This subject held a
particular fascination for Dickinson, in part because she was interested in
resolving religious doubts about life continuing after death. In this poem, the
dead speaker looks back at the moment of death.

After announcing that she heard a fly buzz when she died, the speaker
describes the moments that led up to this event. The first stanza describes the
silence of the room before she died as like the quiet between two phases of a
storm. The second stanza describes the people present at the deathbed. They
are also quiet, exhausted from their watch and preparing now for the final
loss. In the third stanza, she says she had just made her last wishes known
when the fly interposed. The last two lines of this stanza begin the long
sentence that continues through the final stanza. This sentence describes
how the fly seemed to blot out the light, and then all light ceased, leaving her
conscious but utterly blinded.

The poem announces at the outset that sound will be important. The middle of
the poem emphasizes the silence as temporary, as a fragile period between
storms of suffering and weeping. The end of the poem returns to the sound of
the flys buzz, seemingly quiet and inconsequential, not a storm at all and yet
marking indelibly the momentous instant of transition.