Dickinson’s ‘I heard a Fly buzz'

Mystical Adeptness

Oct 22, 2007

Emily Dickinson's "I heard a Fly buzz - when I died" dramatizes the speaker's act of dying, as well as Dickinson's mystical vision, which corresponds to yogic philosophy.

The poem consists of four rimed quatrains with the rime scheme ABCB. Most of the rimes are slant rimes: Room-Storm, firm-room, be-fly. Sprinkled liberally with her signature dashes, the poem displays an appropriate breathless quality.

First Stanza: “I heard a Fly buzz — when I died”

In the first stanza, the speaker claims, “I heard a Fly buzz — when I died.” The first instance of the breathlessness of the poem occurs immediately following the announcement, “I heard a Fly buzz.” Such a mundane statement if left unmodified! But the speaker then adds a real shocker, “when I died.” Nothing could be more startling, nothing could be more Dickinsonian.

The room at the time of her passing professed an eerie stillness, reminding the speaker of the quiet that settles briefly between the turbulences of a storm. The mention of the fly then hangs without further discussion until the last line of the third stanza.

Second Stanza: “The Eyes around — had wrung them dry”

The speaker then depicts the people who are beginning their mourning of her passing: “The Eyes around — had wrung them dry.” The mourners seemed to hold their breath, waiting for that moment when the soul of the loved one makes its final departure from the body: “when the King /

Be witnessed — in the Room.”

The King refers to God’s angel who will appear to escort the soul from the physical to the astral plane. While the escaping soul will be cognizant of the angel, most of the mourners probably will not be, but they will intuit the presence or “that last Onset,” which prompts the “Breaths gathering firm.”

Third Stanza: “I willed my Keepsakes — Signed away”

The speaker avers that she has completed her last will and testament, designating which “Keepsakes” should go and to whom; she has “Signed away / What portion of me be / Assignable.” Some time has obviously passed between making the will and the moment presently dramatized.

The immediate shift from something she must have accomplished earlier suggests the conflating power of the dying process—like the old saw that one’s life passes before one’s sight at death. And then the “Fly” makes it appearance: “There interposed a Fly.” But she begins a new stanza to portray the importance of the “Fly.”

Fourth Stanza: “With Blue — uncertain stumbling Buzz”

The significant final stanza reveals that the fly is not a literal household fly but is a metaphor for the sound of the soul leaving the body. The line “With Blue — uncertain stumbling Buzz” has taken the place of the term “fly.”

A literal fly is black, not blue, but the soul leaving the body experiences the blue of the spiritual eye through which it must travel. The “Buzz” sound would be the sound of the coccygeal center of spiritual energy as it begins its journey up the spine. (Or depending on the spiritual advancement of the speaker, the “om” sound might be described as a buzz.)

With the “Buzz” sound emanating from the departing soul beginning it journey from the coccygeal center, the physical eyesight begins to fail—“then the Windows failed / and then / I could not see to see.” The speaker’s unusual claim “I could not see to see” underscores the fact that her light of vision is fading, and the final dash represents it total departure.

Commentary

Dickinson did not study yoga philosophy; therefore, her poems with their accurate descriptions of the dying process and after death experiences suggest that she had some natural mystic abilities.