I heard a Fly buzz – when I died
Emily Dickinson, 1896
Emily Dickinson's poem spoken by someone at the moment of death, as a fly buzzes in the room.
I heard a fly buzz when I died;The stillness round my formWas like the stillness in the airBetween the heaves of storm.
The eyes beside had wrung them dry,And breaths were gathering sureFor that last onset, when the kingBe witnessed in his power.
I willed my keepsakes, signed awayWhat portion of me ICould make assignable,—and thenThere interposed a fly,
With blue, uncertain, stumbling buzz,Between the light and me;And then the windows failed, and thenI could not see to see.