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 not 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 –


- by Emily Dickinson