I cannot live with you by Emily Dickinson
Analysis
"I cannot live with you" is a poem by Emily Dickinson. This poem is Dickinson's longest mature lyric. It is about an unrequited love. The writing is intended to be a persuasive argument for a man to love her.
This lyrical poem is made up of thirteen stanzas. Most of the stanzas contain four lines; however, the final stanza contains seven. It's almost as if she couldn't explain everything in only four lines so she had to make it slightly longer, because her feelings are so great.
Like many of Dickinson's writings, the second and fourth lines are rhymed, although many of them imperfect. Those same lines are only four syllables. The other lines in the stanzas contain an assortment of meters. It doesn't stick to just one throughout the work.
Johnson number: 640
Poem
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 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, 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 keep apart, You there, I here, With just the door ajar That oceans are, And prayer, And that pale svustenance, Despair!
Next: I died for beauty - but was scarce
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Nationality
American
Literary Movement
19th Century
Subjects
Lyric, Love