I heard a fly buzz when I died;
- I heard a fly buzz when I died;
- The stillness round my form
- Was like the stillness in the air
- 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,
- Between the light and me;
- And then the windows failed, and then
- I could not see to see.