I felt a Funeral, in my Brain
And Mourners to and fro
Kept trading--trading--till it seemed
That Sense was breaking through--------

And when they all were seated,
And Service, like a Drum----
Kept beating---beating---till i thought
My Mind was going numb---

And then I heard them lift a Box
A 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 dropped down, and down----
And hit a World, at every plunge,
And Finished knowing----then----

Source: A hand book of Emily Dickinson(An Evaluation of Her Poetry)

UNDERSTANDING THE POEM:

The poet felt that a funeral ceremony was taking place in her brain. The mourners kept trading to and fro. The trading of the mourners disturbed her brain so much that the sense seems to break down. When the mourners ere seated, a drum like service was beating repeatedly, and being oppressed by the sound, her mind was going numb. She then heard them lift a box(the coffin with the dead body); the lifting made a creaking sound across the mind of the poet.

The person who lifted the coffin were wearing boots of leads which contributed to the creaking sound. Then the space, all the heavens, seem to be one bell tolling on a cosmic level. She become conscious of hearing the cosmic's bells tolling. The he became a part of the silence of the race of the dead people! Her consciousness of the earthly existence was completely lost. Then she did not know what would happen the next!

IMPORTANT POINT OF NOTE:

It is one of the most difficult poems of Dickinson. The poet has expressed her feelings of a dead person in abstruse metaphors----the gradual loss of consciousness of earthly life, and merging into another world, an eternal world.

The imagery dead person is perhaps poet herself.