I Cannot Live With You by Emily Dickinson

I Cannot Live With You

 

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 –