I cannot live with You (640) Lyrics
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
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
This sad poem, Dickinson’s longest, is a renunciation of a lover. She explains why they can’t live together, why they can’t die together and why they can’t be together at the moment of resurrection.
Two different tones alternate — formal repeated lines are interwoven with more colloquial comments.
Dickinson’s characteristic dashes and capitalized nouns appear, though the line lengths are shorter than her usual iambic tetrameter. The choppy rhythm that this creates fits the subject matter; a speaker hesitating and gasping out her emotions.
Structure
The poem comprises twelve stanzas, eleven of them quatrains of four lines each, but ending with a six-lined stanza. The latter is broken into hesitant, short phrases that convey deep emotion.
There is a progression through three stages; three stanzas that explain why living together is impossible; two stanzas explain why dying together is equally impossible; and the last six stanzas deal with the resurrection; and finally a last, despairing conclusion.
Language and Imagery
The voice is that of a first person speaker, we can assume the poet. The broken-up phrasing slows the pace and creates a sense of high emotion as the speaker explains her reasons for rejecting her lover.
Striking images include the Sexton locking up the lovers' lives; the new Sevres china to replace cracked old ones; and in the final stanza the lovers as two oceans separated from each other by a door ajar.
Dickinson’s inventive oxymorons are also striking; for example “sordid excellence” in stanza nine, and “meet apart” in stanza twelve.
Q&A
Find answers to frequently asked questions about the song and explore its deeper meaning
- 8.Huswifery
- 25.Nature
- 26.Economy
- 28.Conclusion
- 29.A Psalm of Life
- 30.Song of Myself
- 51.I cannot live with You (640)
- 59.The Pasture
- 60.Mowing
- 61.Mending Wall
- 63.Design
- 68.A Sort of A Song
- 70.Danse Russe
- 72.A Pact
- 75.Oread
- 76.In Just-
- 80.Harlem Shadows
- 81.The Lynching
- 82.If We Must Die
- 83.Africa
- 84.America
- 85.The White City
- 88.Mother to Son
- 90.The Weary Blues
- 91.Mulatto
- 94.Democracy
- 96.Yet Do I Marvel
- 97.Incident
- 99.Everyday Use
- 100.Howl