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 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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