I Cannot Live with You
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t would be life,And life is over thereBehind the shelf The sexton keeps the key to,Putting upOur 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 waitTo shut the other's gaze down, --You could not. And I, could I stand byAnd see you freeze,Without my right of frost,Death's privilege? Nor could I rise with you,Because your faceWould put out Jesus',That new grace Glow plain and foreignOn my homesick eye,Except that you, than heShone 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 eyesFor sordid excellenceAs Paradise. And were you lost, I would be,Though my nameRang loudestOn the heavenly fame. And were you saved,And I condemned to beWhere you were not,That self were hell to me. So we must keep apart,You there, I here,With just the door ajarThat oceans are,And prayer,And that pale sustenance,Despair!
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