Dying

IHEARD 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.