| 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, | 5 |
| 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 | 10 |
| 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 | 15 |
| I could not see to see. |