I cannot live with You
I cannot live with You
Emily Dickinson
I cannot live with You —
It would be Life —
And Life is over there —
Behind the Shelf
The Sexton keeps the Key to —
Putting up
Our Life — His Porcelain —
Like a Cup —
Discarded of the Housewife —
Quaint — or Broke —
A newer Sevres pleases —
Old Ones crack —
I could not die — with You —
For One must wait
To shut the Other's Gaze down —
You — could not —
And I — Could I stand by
And see You — freeze —
Without my Right of Frost —
Death's privilege?
Nor could I rise — with You —
Because Your Face
Would put out Jesus' —
That New Grace
Glow plain — and foreign
On my homesick Eye —
Except that You than He
Shone closer by —
They'd judge Us — How —
For You — served Heaven — You know,
Or sought to —
I could not —
Because You saturated Sight —
And I had no more Eyes
For sordid excellence
As Paradise
And were You lost, I would be —
Though My Name
Rang loudest
On the Heavenly fame —
And were You — saved —
And I — condemned to be
Where You were not —
That self — were Hell to Me —
So We must meet apart —
You there — I — here —
With just the Door ajar
That Oceans are — and Prayer —
And that White Sustenance —
Despair —
Verse breaks and indentation are preserved. Wrapped lines have a hanging indent. Width adapts to your screen.
Written c. 1863. Published 1890.
