Emily Dickinson

Dying

DYING.
I HEARD a fly buzz when I died;
The stillness round my form
Was like the stillness in the air

The stillness in the air

Not peaceful quiet—the eerie pause between thunderclaps. Death is being compared to the moment when a storm catches its breath before the next strike.

Between the heaves of storm.
The eyes beside had wrung them dry,
And breaths were gathering sure
For that last onset, when the king
Be witnessed in his power.
I willed my keepsakes, signed away
What portion of me I
Could make assignable,—and then
There interposed a fly,
With blue, uncertain, stumbling buzz,

blue, uncertain, stumbling buzz

Flies are iridescent blue-green. The three adjectives mimic the erratic flight pattern—uncertain direction, stumbling movement, unsteady buzz. Sound matching motion.

Between the light and me;
And then the windows failed, and then

I could not see to see

Double meaning: physically can't see (eyes failing), and can't see the expected vision of heaven or God. The fly blocks both kinds of sight.

I could not see to see.
Source Wikipedia Poetry Foundation

Reading Notes

What Actually Happens at Death

Dickinson wrote this around 1862, during her most productive period when she was obsessed with death scenes. Unlike her contemporaries' pious deathbed poems, this one subverts the entire genre.

The 19th-century "good death" was a public performance. Family gathered, the dying person made final statements, and—crucially—everyone watched for signs of divine presence. The phrase "when the king / Be witnessed in his power" captures this expectation: God or Christ should appear, confirming the soul's salvation. The room is staged for a spiritual climax.

Instead: a fly. The poem's genius is making the trivial interrupt the eternal. Not a demon or dark omen—just an ordinary housefly, doing what flies do. The bathos is deliberate. After all the legal business ("willed my keepsakes, signed away"), after the gathered witnesses holding their breath, the cosmic moment arrives and... buzz. The fly doesn't symbolize death or decay; it simply is, while everyone else is waiting for meaning.

The Stumbling Buzz

Notice what Dickinson does with sound. The fly gets five adjectives across two stanzas: blue, uncertain, stumbling (describing the buzz), and later it interposes and fails the windows. This is more description than God gets (zero adjectives).

"Uncertain, stumbling buzz" is acoustic precision. Fly sounds aren't steady—they waver, stop, restart, change pitch as the insect changes direction. Dickinson makes you hear the erratic flight pattern. The buzz stumbles the way the fly stumbles through air.

The final line "I could not see to see" is the poem's hinge. First meaning: eyes failing, physical blindness. Second meaning: couldn't see the expected vision—no heavenly light, no divine king, no transcendent revelation. The fly's "uncertain, stumbling buzz" is the last sound of consciousness, blocking out the cosmic certainty everyone anticipated. What you get at death isn't angels or darkness, but the same mundane world, now unreachable.