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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

I CANNOT LIVE WITH YOU by EMILY DICKINSON

Poem Explanation Poet Analysis

Last Line: And that White Sustenance — / Despair
Subject(s): RELATIONSHIPS; DESPAIR;
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 -


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