Our group was first struck by the apparent epiphany the narrator experiences in the fourth stanza. Given the last line though, in which the speaker "finish[es] knowing - then," the epiphany seems to be somewhat of an anti-epiphany.
In trying to gather together some common ground from which to launch our exploration of the poem's meaning, we agreed that it is clear from the first line that this poem is about the metaphorical death of something. We speculated, given the final line, the funeral she feels is for the death of understanding.
We noted the poem's frequent use of repetition, which, in so short a space, is clearly an intentionally-chosen device. "Mourners" are "treading - treading"; a "Service" keeps "beating - beating"; the speaker drops "down, and down." This repetition strikes the speaker "like a drum" and instills in them a sense of numbness. What is being repeated? Why is it numbing? Although this poem's composition date (1862) puts is well before early 20th-century Existentialism, and more research is necessary in order to properly place the poem in its historical, intellectual context, it was posited that Dickinson's speaker may be reacting frustratedly against the repeated, mournful assertions of philosophers and intellectuals that objective truth has died (that anything can be epistemologically certain).
The speaker's assertion that "all the Heavens were a Bell, / and Being, but an ear," carries with it the repetitious theme ("Space" even "[begins] to toll," as a bell chimes repeatedly), but the tolling of a bell does not carry with it the same oppressive, numbing effect that a drum might have. The effect is instead somewhat freeing, and we see the speaker drop through the flimsy "Plank in Reason" (now that "Reason" is no longer supportive) and free-fall through the seemingly infinite space of her mind. The tone of the poem, which was at first elegaic, intensifies in its sense of loss, but this loss is no longer necessarily to be mourned.
-Alé, Barbara, and Rebecca
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