American Literature: "I heard a Fly buzz - when I died"

"I heard a Fly buzz - when I died"

By Emily Dickenson​

​- Emily Dickenson

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.

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The eyes beside had wrung them dry,

And breaths were gathering sure

For that last onset, when the king

Be witnessed in his power.

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I willed my keepsakes, signed away

What portion of me I

Could make assignable,-and then

There interposed a fly,

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With blue, uncertain, stumbling buzz,

Between the light and me;

And then the windows failed, and then

I could not see to see.

Open Ended

Find the meter of the following two lines:

"I heard a fly buzz when I died;

The stillness round my form"

How would you describe the meter of this poem?

Open Ended

What is the rhyme scheme of this poem?

Write it on the poem.

Note the lines that use slant rhyme with a star.

What effect does slant rhyme have on a poem?

Open Ended

What is happening to the narrator of this poem? How is she dealing with it?

Open Ended

What is the narrator expecting to see? What happens instead?

Open Ended

How is the fly used as a symbol in this poem?

Open Ended

Find an example of the following:

- metaphor

- onomatopoeia

- oxymoron

- simile