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 —