Of all the topics that interested Emily, death was obsessively attractive to her as a subject for poetry. Sometimes erotic, sometimes mystical, sometimes threatening, always fascinating, Emily devoted many poems to death. In "I Felt a Funeral in My Brain," Emily examined the question of whether a human consciousness continues after death. We wonder how many times she may have lain in her bed and pretended to be dead in order to find the truth in these lines:

I FELT A FUNERAL IN MY BRAIN,
AND MOURNERS, TO AND FRO,
KEPT TREADING, TREADING, TILL IT SEEMED
THAT SENSE WAS BREAKING THROUGH.

AND WHEN THEY ALL WERE SEATED,
A SERVICE LIKE A DRUM
KEPT BEATING, BEATING, TILL I THOUGHT
MY MIND WAS GOING NUMB.

AND THEN I HEARD THEM LIFT A BOX,
AND CREAK ACROSS MY SOUL
WITH THOSE SAME BOOTS OF LEAD, AGAIN.
THEN SPACE BEGAN TO TOLL

AS ALL THE HEAVENS WERE A BELL,
AND BEING BUT AN EAR,
AND I AND SILENCE SOME STRANGE RACE,
WRECKED, SOLITARY, HERE.