Thursday, April 28, 2011

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 life, his porcelain,
Like a cup 

Discarded of the housewife,
Quaint or broken;
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,

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