by Emily Dickinson (1830 - 1886)
I cannot live with you
Language: English
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.
About the headline (FAQ)
Authorship:
- by Emily Dickinson (1830 - 1886), no title [author's text not yet checked against a primary source]
Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):
- by Gordon Getty (b. 1933), "I cannot live with you" [soprano and piano], from The White Election - A Song Cycle for soprano and piano on 32 poems of Emily Dickinson, Part 2 : So We Must Meet Apart, no. 16. [text verified 1 time]
Researcher for this page: Barbara Miller
This text was added to the website: 2011-01-12
Line count: 50
Word count: 204