I Cannot Live With You , by 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 lives 
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 priviledge


Nor could I rise with you 
 Because your face 
Would put out Jesus'
That new grace grow 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 , you ought 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 met apart 
You there 
I here 

With just the door ajar 
That oceans are - 

And prayer 
And that white sustenance - 
Despair.