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 –
The Fear of Love
“I cannot live with You” by Emily Dickinson expresses her fears about loving someone, which may well be excuses for preferring to be alone, as Dickinson was famously a recluse for much of her life. In this poem she lists off the various reasons why it would be impossible for her to let herself truly love the object of her affections. Whether it is her fear that she could not face it if her lover parted this earth first or that this love would overshadow the ecstasy of heaven, she is seeking the most meaningful and profound reasons for her life of solitude.
While most of us are not recluse poets who have redefined an entire era of American poetry, we can identify with Dickinson’s willful rejection of the immense risks and pains that come with letting ourselves love and be loved. Love exposes us to some of the most powerful emotions in the human experience, but this also leaves us vulnerable to some of the most devastating feelings of hurt and loss. While most of us decide that it is better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all, this poem offers a rare glimpse into the mind of those who choose to reject love out of the fear of all the confusion and pain that it often brings.
While we are often bombarded by notions of love in our modern media, this poem is a gift of insight into an alternate view on love and, ultimately, life. Dickinson’s rejection of love and the associated pain for the comfort and safety of loneliness and seclusion is just as essential a part of the human experience. Furthermore, many of us will come to a point where we no longer have the will or the strength to love again, and we choose instead to embrace a safe and comfortable world that we can understand and control, though perhaps not to the extent that Dickinson chose.