emily dickinson 706 analysis

I cannot live with You Summary & Analysis by Emily Dickinson

• Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis
• Poetic Devices
• Vocabulary & References
• Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme
• Line-by-Line Explanations

"I cannot live with You" is one of American poet Emily Dickinson's longest poems—and perhaps one of her most tormented. The poem's speaker tells a beloved that they "cannot live" together, not because their love is insufficient, but because it's overpowering. The thought of sitting beside this beloved's death bed (or worse, being separated from them in the afterlife) is simply too much for the speaker to bear; they'd rather endure the "Despair" of parting now than face those trials later. Like most of Dickinson's poems, this one wasn't discovered until after her death . It was first printed in the posthumous collection Poems (1890).

• Read the full text of “I cannot live with You –”

The Full Text of “I cannot live with You –”

1 I cannot live with You –

2 It would be Life –

3 And Life is over there –

4 Behind the Shelf

5 The Sexton keeps the key to –

6 Putting up

7 Our Life – his Porcelain –

8 Like a Cup –

9 Discarded of the Housewife –

10 Quaint – or Broke –

11 A newer Sevres pleases –

12 Old Ones crack –

13 I could not die – with You –

14 For One must wait

15 To shut the Other's Gaze down –

16 You – could not –

17 And I  – Could I stand by

18 And see You – freeze –

19 Without my Right of Frost –

20 Death's privilege?

21 Nor could I rise – with You –

22 Because Your Face

23 Would put out Jesus' –

24 That New Grace

25 Glow plain – and foreign

26 On my homesick eye –

27 Except that You than He

28 Shone closer by –

29 They'd judge Us – How –

30 For You – served Heaven – You know,

31 Or sought to –

32 I could not –

33 Because You saturated sight –

34 And I had no more eyes

35 For sordid excellence

36 As Paradise

37 And were You lost, I would be –

38 Though my name

39 Rang loudest

40 On the Heavenly fame –

41 And were You – saved –

42 And I – condemned to be

43 Where You were not

44 That self – were Hell to me –

45 So we must meet apart –

46 You there – I – here –

47 With just the Door ajar

48 That Oceans are – and Prayer –

49 And that White Sustenance –

50 Despair –

“I cannot live with You –” Summary

“i cannot live with you –” themes.

The Agony of Impossible Love

• See where this theme is active in the poem.

Fear, Avoidance, and Isolation

Love vs. Religion

Line-by-line explanation & analysis of “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 –

Lines 13-16

I could not die – with You – For One must wait To shut the Other's Gaze down – You – could not –

Lines 17-20

And I  – Could I stand by And see You – freeze – Without my Right of Frost – Death's privilege?

Lines 21-28

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 –

Lines 29-32

They'd judge Us – How – For You – served Heaven – You know, Or sought to – I could not –

Lines 33-36

Because You saturated sight – And I had no more eyes For sordid excellence As Paradise

Lines 37-44

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 –

Lines 45-50

So we must meet apart – You there – I – here – With just the Door ajar That Oceans are – and Prayer – And that White Sustenance – Despair –

“I cannot live with You –” Symbols

The Sexton and the Housewife

• See where this symbol appears in the poem.

“I cannot live with You –” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language

• See where this poetic device appears in the poem.

“I cannot live with You –” Vocabulary

Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.

• Nor could I rise – with You –
• The Heavenly fame
• See where this vocabulary word appears in the poem.

Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “I cannot live with You –”

Rhyme scheme, “i cannot live with you –” speaker, “i cannot live with you –” setting, literary and historical context of “i cannot live with you –”, more “i cannot live with you –” resources, external resources.

The Poem Aloud — Listen to a reading of the poem.

The Poem in Dickinson's Hand — See a manuscript of the poem at the Emily Dickinson Archive.

The Emily Dickinson Museum — Visit the Dickinson Museum's website to learn more about Dickinson's life and work.

Dickinson's Loves — Learn more about Dickinson's love poetry (and the loves that likely inspired it).

Dickinson's Influence — Listen to contemporary writer Jo Shapcott discussing what Dickinson means to her.

LitCharts on Other Poems by Emily Dickinson

A Bird, came down the Walk

After great pain, a formal feeling comes –

A Light exists in Spring

A Murmur in the Trees—to note—

A narrow Fellow in the Grass

An awful Tempest mashed the air—

As imperceptibly as grief

A still—Volcano—Life—

Because I could not stop for Death —

Before I got my eye put out

Fame is a fickle food

Hope is the thing with feathers

I cautious, scanned my little life

I could bring You Jewels—had I a mind to—

I did not reach Thee

I died for Beauty—but was scarce

I dreaded that first Robin, so

I dwell in Possibility –

I felt a Funeral, in my Brain

If I can stop one heart from breaking

I had been hungry, all the Years

I have a Bird in spring

I heard a Fly buzz - when I died -

I like a look of Agony

I like to see it lap the Miles

I measure every Grief I meet

I’m Nobody! Who are you?

I started Early — Took my Dog —

I taste a liquor never brewed

It was not Death, for I stood up

I—Years—had been—from Home—

Like Rain it sounded till it curved

Much Madness is divinest Sense -

My Life had stood - a Loaded Gun

Nature is what we see

One need not be a Chamber — to be Haunted

Publication — is the Auction

Safe in their Alabaster Chambers

Success is counted sweetest

Tell all the truth but tell it slant —

The Brain—is wider than the Sky—

The Bustle in a House

The Mushroom is the Elf of Plants

There came a Wind like a Bugle

There is no Frigate like a Book

There's a certain Slant of light

There's been a Death, in the Opposite House

The saddest noise, the sweetest noise

The Sky is low — the Clouds are mean

The Soul has bandaged moments

The Soul selects her own Society

The Wind – tapped like a tired Man –

They shut me up in Prose –

This is my letter to the world

This World is not Conclusion

'Twas the old—road—through pain—

We grow accustomed to the Dark

What mystery pervades a well!

Whose cheek is this?

Wild nights - Wild nights!

Everything you need for every book you read.

A Summary and Analysis of Emily Dickinson’s ‘I cannot live with You – ’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘I cannot live with You’ is one of Emily Dickinson’s most famous poems, but like much of her greatest poetry, it eludes any easy or straightforward analysis. Somewhat unusually among Dickinson’s most celebrated poems, ‘I cannot live with You’ is a love poem – but it is far from a conventional one.

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 –

What is this enigmatic poem about? It opens by wrong-footing us – twice – in the first two lines. ‘I cannot live with You’: unusually for a love poem, the assertion is not ‘I cannot live without you’, but rather the opposite. Then, the reason: ‘It would be Life’. Not death, which is what we might expect, but the more positive ‘Life’.

Discarded of the Housewife – Quaint – or Broke – A newer Sevres pleases – Old Ones crack –

Yet this ‘Life’, for Dickinson, is far from positive: it is confined and concealed, ‘Behind the Shelf’, as if a sexton (or church officer) had locked it away. It is like broken or outdated porcelain – an old cup, for instance – that is discarded or kept out of sight by a housewife who doesn’t want such unfashionable china on display.

Dickinson then states that, just as she cannot live with her lover, she could not die with him either:

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?

To paraphrase this, ‘I could not die with you, because to see your loved one die and have to close their dead eyes with your fingers would fill you with grief so overpowering that you’d want to join them in death – and you can’t, because “One must wait” for one’s own death, and go on living without the other person.

And as for myself, could I stand by and watch your body turn cold in death, without longing to attain my own “Right of Frost” and join you in cold death?’

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 –

From considering life and death, Dickinson then turns her analytical eye to resurrection, stating that she could not rise from the dead with her loved one, because his face is too beautiful and would obscure the face of Jesus. This would prevent Dickinson from seeing paradise, because her lover’s face would block it from view.

And were You – saved – And I – condemned to be Where You were not – That self – were Hell to Me –

Similarly, she cannot conceive of hell, because hell for her simply means being without him. Just as their lives must be spent apart and their deaths must be solitary, so they seem destined to spend their time in the afterlife apart – at least this is the way Dickinson views it.

The poem ends with another little riddle or paradox:

So We must meet apart – You there – I – here – With just the Door ajar That Oceans are – and Prayer – And that White Sustenance – Despair –

‘Meet apart ’? Just like two people in two separate rooms who can merely glimpse and hear each other through a door left ajar, or like two people who are oceans apart (but who can, for instance, ‘meet’ through corresponding if not by meeting in the flesh), Dickinson and her lover are destined to meet but only in such a way that reminds us of the distance between them.

Finally, Dickinson likens this sort of relationship to the one a religious person has with God: ‘Prayer’ is a way of ‘meeting’ God but also reminds the mortal worshipper that God is up there while they are down here on Earth.

And then, a last overturning of conventional thinking: ‘Despair’ is not painted black but instead is ‘White Sustenance’. This turns on its head the usual black-white attitude to hope and despair (‘great white hope’, ‘blackest despair’), making despair not only the white one but the thing which keeps us going or sustains us.

For after all, in hopeless love it is despair at the situation, rather than hope that it can be overcome, which tends to feed on us and which we, in turn, feed on. You’ll be hard-pushed to find a more succinct and sharp, yet also powerfully moving, description of hopeless love in all of nineteenth-century poetry.

‘I cannot live with You’ is at once a love poem and an anti-love poem, or rather a poem against the act of love. This is because it can also be analysed as, if not a religious poem, then a poem about religion, since it argues that mortal love distracts us from spiritual thoughts and religious observance.

This is evident in the early reference to the sexton, and then again in the lines about Jesus and paradise. The poem deftly weaves together familiar tropes from love poetry – the sentiments that ‘life without you would be hell’ and ‘my thoughts are consumed entirely by you’ – and, by melding them together with religious tropes, creates a new kind of love poem.

3 thoughts on “A Summary and Analysis of Emily Dickinson’s ‘I cannot live with You – ’”

Some people put in too many words and some people put in too few. I belong in the first column and Emily in the second.

Sent from my iPad

Great post! I really love her punctuation (her dashes) – they’re so ambiguous but expressive.

Does this poem obscure a broken heart.

Comments are closed.

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A Close Reading of "I Cannot Live With You"

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" I Cannot Live With You " is one of Emily Dickinson ’s great love poems, close in form to the poetic argument of a classic Shakespearean sonnet .¹ The poem shares the logical sensibility of the metaphysical poets whom she admired, advancing her thoughts about her lover, slowly, from the first declaration to the inevitable devastating conclusion. However, unlike most sonnet arguments or "carpe diem" poems , this poem seems designed to argue against love. The poem can be broken down into five parts. The first explains why she cannot live with the object of her love, the second why she cannot die with him, the third why she cannot rise with him, the fourth why she cannot fall with him, and the final utterance of impossibility. The poem begins with a sense of impossibility:

     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 – 

Moving from the abstraction of the first four lines, the second and third stanzas enter into the domestic metaphor of china, which is described variously as discarded, broken, quaint, and cracked, put up on the shelf and forgotten. If life is "behind the shelf," it is completely outside the experience of the china, as is the speaker’s life. The power of the first line is temporarily muted, and the reader is similarly trapped inside a haunting verse of cups and shelves, eerie in their quietness. That the china is locked away by the sexton, a representative of the official or practical face of religiosity, seems to imply that it is not only the domestic sphere that the speaker is trapped in, but also the binds of the church, or at least the administrative daily function of the church, which Dickinson viewed as being quite separate from the passion behind it.

The lines themselves alternate between long and short, and the disparity between the lines becomes more dramatic in the second and third stanzas. The delicate, halting, "cracked" lines that describe the china seem physically overwhelmed by the lines about the housewife or sexton. Between the second and third stanzas, the enjambment (pausing on "cup") compounded with the dash, which emphasizes the pause and line break, allows life to be hopefully like a "cup" for the fraction of a second it takes the reader to make it to the next line, where it is discarded "of the housewife." This line reads as both "The housewife discards the cup" and also "the Sexton puts away the cup discarded by the housewife," as if what is not good enough for marriage is good enough for the church. "Quaint," incidentally, is a word that Dickinson used to describe herself in letters, when writing about her reclusiveness; "half-cracked" is a word that T. H. Higginson, her poetic correspondent, used to describe her.

In the second part of the poem, Dickinson imagines that the alternative to living with someone is dying with them, but that also has been denied to her:

     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?

These stanzas express not only the fact that if she cannot live with her love she is dead, but also that the "with" is taken from her—she can die, but not with him because death is necessarily a private act. First she argues that she must wait to "shut the Other’s Gaze down," which might literally mean to close his eyes, but also the word "Gaze" implies that there is something sustaining about the act of looking upon another with love; it is that which creates life, and it must be actively shut down for death to occur. She imagines that he would not be strong enough to do that for her. Her second argument within this section is that, upon his death, denied the "Right of Frost," she would long for death.

In the third section of the poem, Dickinson imagines the final judgment, and how it might be overwhelmed by her earthly love:

     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 not more Eyes      For sordid excellence      As Paradise

She is unable to see or experience paradise because she is so consumed with her vision of him—not only does his face "put out" the face of Jesus like a candle, but he "saturated her sight" so much in life that she is unable to "see" paradise, meaning, perhaps that he distracted her from piety. The speaker’s experience in this poem is deeply linked to sight, and suggests that that which cannot be seen cannot be experienced. In the stanza beginning "They’d judge us," there is a complete breakdown of rhyme; when she writes "I could not," she does not rhyme, and the faltering echoes the broken fragility of the first lines. The pairing of "sordid excellence" is both a metaphysical touch and a characteristic Dickinson moment of transforming an abstraction into its opposite with an oddly chosen adjective.

In the fourth section of the poem, the speaker describes why she cannot be in hell with her lover:

     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 – 

Just as she cannot see heaven because his face obscures her view, her perspective of hell is confined to being without him. If she were saved and he were lost, then she would be in hell without him, and if they were both saved, but saved apart, then that would also be hell. In admirable pursuit of the conclusion of this radical argument, which has grown ever more impossible as she chases it, she passionately refuses to believe that there is an alternative where they are both saved together or both condemned.

The final stanza acts structurally like the final couplet of a sonnet, finishing the argument, but leaving a question for the reader to consider:

     So We must meet apart –       You there – I – here –       With just the Door ajar      That Oceans are – and Prayer –       And that White Sustenance –       Despair – 

In the line "You there – I – here" we can see a perfect example of how the poet's dashes work to hold the words and ideas of "you" and "I" apart.

As in a sonnet, the rhyme scheme tightens up quite a bit in this final section. Dickinson internally rhymes "are" with "ajar," half-rhymes "apart" and "ajar," "despair" with "there," "here" and "prayer," then closes up the stanza in rhyme. It is as if she intends the final rhyme to show the perfection of her argument in the poem's conclusion. Additionally, those four words that she rhymes quite eloquently express the problem itself, with prayer standing in for its close synonym, hope. The intricacy of the rhyme leaves "sustenance" as unrhymed, underscoring that "White Sustenance" does not nourish. Incidentally, early publications of the poem replaced "white" with "pale" as if softening the conclusion that she reaches by modifying the degree of her language; "pale sustenance" seems somehow more sustaining.

However, even as she closes the argument, it opens up a little, because in this despair she has found a kind of sustenance, however undernourishing it is. There is something holy about this kind of despair, and "white" seems also to be "heavenly," as if in losing her hope for the afterlife, she has found a new earthly devotion to replace it, and then elevated it to celestial levels. This stanza is notably the first time she uses the word "We," capitalized for emphasis, and creates a paradox where "meet apart" seems possible, or at least more possible than any of the other alternatives she has rejected throughout the poem. She claims that the door is just "ajar" but then compares it to oceans, making "ajar" as wide open as the earth itself, and then linking it to prayer, or hope. In this amazingly deft bit of wordplay, Dickinson reverses everything as she’s saying it—the lovers are apart but meeting; the door is ajar, like an ocean; and the speaker is somehow sustained by despair. In a final touch, she ends the poem with an elongated endstop, printed as a dash, and whether it is meant to be "ajar" or more definitively shut is as unanswerable as the final question of the poem.

¹ A Shakespearean sonnet typically uses the three quatrains to develop an argument about love, adding a new logical point in each. While poems are not typically thought of as arguments, the Renaissance tradition demanded rigorous logic and quality of thought rather than simple sentimentality—even when writing about love. For example, in a "carpe diem" poem, the poet is trying to find inventive ways to convince a virgin to "make much of time." Other arguments might be why love lasts beyond death, why a comparison to a summer’s day is a complete failure, or why the poet's love is greater than any other previous love.

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I cannot live with You by Emily Dickinson

“I cannot live with You” is a “Quaint” lyric poem composed by one of the greatest 19th-century American poets, Emily Dickinson. It appears as poem number 640 in the collection, The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson , edited by Thomas H. Johnson, published in 1955. Dickinson’s poignant style takes center stage in this poem that deals with the pangs of a loving heart that cannot be united with its lover. She captures the inner turmoil of a lover (partly feminist and partly devoted) who, throughout the poem, talks about why she cannot be with the person she loves. The speaker cites various reasons for her decision and addresses her lover to explain her suffering and pain in being away from him. Besides, she addresses her lover as “You” throughout the poem keeping their identity gender-neutral.

• Read the full poem “I cannot live with You” below:

In “I cannot live with You,” Dickinson talks about the other aspect of desire; how “love” is not the only thing enough to sustain life. Her poetic persona explains her reasoning to her lover with a heavy heart about why they cannot be together despite being in love. She tells him that even though she loves him, they cannot live together because she foresees the slow monotony that will capture their existence. Their life would be like a “Cup” discarded of a housewife—full of boredom, uselessness, and dullness.

She would rather love him from a distance rather than be together and lose that love they share. The speaker also goes on to say that she cannot live with her lover because she would not be able to bear the pain of separation upon the lover’s death, as they cannot die together. She elaborates on the uncertainty of reunion after death, and while there is no doubt that though she loves her significant other, she cannot commit to living with him because love is not an isolated idea, it encompasses other worthwhile considerations.

Dickinson presents a very different persona in “I cannot live with You” – one whose love is deep and unshakeable but who cannot deal with the domesticity and monotony that love in a society brings. Through the many scattered lines that jump from one idea to the next, she talks about how love can be as difficult as nurturing and cherishing it for the rest of one’s life. She draws the clear distinction between romanticizing love from a distance and actually living with the person one loves. The idea of eventual separation from the lover once they’ve lived a lifetime together is much more painful for the speaker than not being with him at all. Thus, it becomes more important for her. The purest form of love is as exists in the speaker’s mind – at a distance.

This poem also subtly brings out the speaker’s own perception of herself and her grim idea of existence. The very fact that life itself isn’t desirable to her. Therefore she doesn’t want this tedium to extend to a lifetime with her lover. That is what Dickinson portrays through this piece.

Structure, Rhyme Scheme, & Meter

Structure & form.

“I cannot live with You” is a lyric poem that is written in the first-person point of view. The speaker directly addresses her lover to tell him why they cannot live together as per societal norms. This piece is structurally very modernist and different from linguistically normative lyric poems. It is made up of 12 stanzas of varying line lengths, with every stanza consisting of four lines.

Dickinson plays with punctuation and the arrangement of words in the poem. She employs a sort of stream-of-consciousness ploy which became popular with modernist writers later in the 20th-century. Besides, she makes use of pauses, metrical breaks (caesura) within the lines, omission of punctuation, and her trademark dashes throughout the poem, which can be found in her other poems as well.

This brings in the sense of urgency and also emphasizes the metrical pauses in the poem. These linguistic peculiarities depict the speaker’s anxious state of mind and her pain in conveying her thoughts to her lover. Language becomes the central way in which the poem portrays the pangs felt by the aching lover.

Rhyme Scheme

Since the poem is modern in a sense, Dickinson deliberately deviates from the conventional rules of poetry. She uses the ABCB rhyme scheme loosely throughout the text according to the mood of a particular stanza. In only six quatrains, she uses the perfect ABCB scheme:

• Stanza Two: “up” and “Cup”
• Stanza Six: “Face” and “Grace”
• Stanza Seven: “Eye” and “by”
• Stanza Nine: “Eyes” and “Paradise”
• Stanza Ten: “Name” and “fame”
• Stanza Eleven: “be” and “Me”

In the other five stanzas, Dickinson uses her characteristic slant rhymes or half-rhymes; for example:

• Stanza One: “Life” and “Shelf”
• Stanza Three: “Broke” and “crack”
• Stanza Four: “wait” and “not”
• Stanza Five: “freeze” and “privilege”
• Stanza Eight: “know” and “not”

In the last stanza, she uses a different pattern. The second, fourth, and sixth lines end with similar rhyme: “here,” “Prayer,” and “Despair.” While the first and third lines contain slant rhyme: “apart” and “ajar.” The fifth line ends with “Sustenance,” standing out from the rest.

Even though each stanza contains four lines, the lines are of varying lengths without a fixed metrical structure. Oddly, the syllable count varies from eight to merely two syllables; stanzas like one and five contain the 6-4-6-4 pattern, and stanzas two and three contain the 7-3-6-3 pattern. Let’s have a look at the scansion of the first few stanzas and try to have an overview of the sound scheme:

I can /-not live / with You –  It would / be Life –  And Life / is o /-ver there –  Be- hind / the Shelf The Sex /-ton keeps / the Key / to –  Put /-ting up Our Life / – His Por /-ce- lain –  Like / a Cup –  Dis- car /-ded of / the House /-wife –  Quaint / – or Broke –  A new /-er Sevres / plea- ses –  Old / Ones crack –  I could / not die / – with You –  For One / must wait To shut / the O /-ther’s Gaze / down –  You / – could not – 

From this metrical pattern, it can be said the overall poem is written in iambic trimeter and iambic dimeter alternatively. However, this scheme is tweaked in the ninth stanza and twelfth stanzas:

Be- cause / You sa /-tu- ra /-ted Sight –  And I / had no / more Eyes For sor /-did ex /-ce- llence As Pa /-ra- dise … So We / must meet / a- part –  You there / – I – here –  With just / the Door / a- jar That O /-ceans are / – and Pray(e)r –  And that / White Sus /-te- nance –  Des- pair –

Literary Devices & Figurative Language

Dickinson employs the following literary devices in her poem “I cannot live with You.”

• Dickinson’s persona stretches the idea of “life” from the first to the second stanza and compares it to an old/used “Porcelain” or chinaware and “Cup.”
• In the third stanza, she uses an extended metaphor of discarded “Sevres,” a type of porcelain made at Sèvres, Paris.
• In “To shut the Other’s Gaze down,” Dickinson compares “Gaze” (eyelids) to a windowpane or door.
• The idea of “Death” is compared to a “Right”—the process of freezing, gradually growing numb, and losing the warmth of life.
• There is another extended metaphor for “Hell,” which is referred to as a state of loneliness when one’s lover is redeemed while the other isn’t.
• Dickinson compares “Despair” to a “White Sustenance in the last line.”

Dickinson uses this device in the following lines:

• “Our Life – His Porcelain –/ Like a Cup –”
• “For sordid excellence/ As Paradise”

In the first example, “Life” is compared to a “Cup,” and in the second example, “Paradise” is compared to a sort of corrupt/adulterated “excellence.”

The entire poem operates on the ironic idea of the speaker not being able to live with her lover despite loving him. This can be seen through the following lines:

I cannot live with You – It would be Life – … So We must meet apart – You there – I – here –

The title of the poem or the first line contains irony as one expects “without” in the statement, “I cannot live with You.” In this way, Dickinson shocks readers at the very beginning.

This can be seen in the following lines:

• “It would be Life  –/ And Life is over there –”
• “And I  – could I stand by”
• “For You  – served Heaven –  You know”

Dickinson repeats a particular term in specific lines for the sake of emphasis. Besides, she makes use of the word “Life” in a number of instances serving the same purpose.

Through the use of antithesis in the following lines:

• “For You – served Heaven – You know,/ Or sought to –/ I could not –”
• “Because You saturated Sight –/ And I had no more Eyes”

The speaker ironically enhances the differences between herself and her lover that heighten the impossibility of their union.

Alliteration

Dickinson uses this device to create internal rhyming within the lines; for instance, it is used in the following phrases:

• “the Sh elf/ The S exton”
• “ k eeps the K ey”
• “ G race/ G low”
• “ th at you th an”
• “ s aturated S ight”
• “ m ust m eet”
• “ th e D oor”

It occurs when the same word or phrase is repeated at the beginning of consecutive lines. This rhetorical device is used to make one speaker’s points sound more forceful and appealing. For instance, the usage of this device can be found in the first two lines of the fifth and eleventh stanzas:

And I – could I stand by And see You – freeze –  … And were You – saved –  And I – condemned to be

Line-by-Line Analysis & Explanation

I cannot live with You – It would be Life – And Life is over there – Behind the Shelf

In the opening lines of Dickinson’s poem “I cannot live with You,” the speaker establishes the central conflict – she addresses her lover and says that she cannot live with him, for it would be “Life.” The word “Life” becomes essential – it stands for a “life” in the sense of just existing but not actually living. The speaker does not want a life filled with monotony and dullness, eventually losing the excitement of the heartfelt love she has for her lover.

The Sexton keeps the Key to – Putting up Our Life – His Porcelain –  Like a Cup –

Sexton is a person who is in charge of ringing the church bells, looking after the church belongings, acting as a gravedigger, and taking care of the churchyards. This enhances the dread and eternal doom the speaker anticipates will be the daily reality of the lovers’ lives if they stay together as others do. The symbol of the “Porcelain” kept on the shelf as signifying the conjugal life of the lovers is very significant. This suggests that while their life would appear outwardly blissful, they would internally be in a state of misery and monotony – an empty existence like a “Cup.”

Discarded of the Housewife –  Quaint – or Broke –  A newer Sevres pleases –  Old Ones crack –

In the third quatrain, the speaker gives further depth to her reasoning. Dickinson extends the metaphor of the Porcelain cup, which signifies a drab, dull existence. Through this comparison, she points out that no matter how strong love is between two people, after a point, boredom and monotony would overtake the initial felicity and make life seem like a burden.

“A newer Sevres pleases” is of consequence here; a Sevres is Parisian porcelain that contains intricate designs. While the lovers would continue to exist with each other, they would start desiring a different kind of life that would appear more attractive than the one they share. She, therefore, suggests that they should not lose the pure love they have for each other by wearing it away within societal confines.

Lines 13-16

I could not die – with You –  For One must wait To shut the Other’s Gaze down –  You – could not –

In these lines of “I cannot live with You,” the speaker says that even if they spend a lifetime together, they would not be able to die at the exact moment as each other. Her lover’s death would be the cause of intense suffering for the speaker who outlives him. Death would inevitably come to proclaim its existence. It would shut one lover’s “Gaze” down. While the other could not die before witnessing the former’s final moment. The speaker would not know an existence without him, and therefore, that pain and emptiness would surpass the moments of happiness in the “Life” they shared.

Lines 17-20

And I – could I stand by And see You – freeze –  Without my Right of Frost –  Death’s privilege?

In the fifth stanza, Dickinson extends the idea of physical death being the end of mortal love. The speaker reiterates her point – she wouldn’t be able to bear the sorrow and heartbreak of seeing her lifelong companion die in front of her. The pain of having to outlive her significant other seems so insurmountable to her that she would rather not have a life together at all.

There also emerges in these lines intense death ideation – the speaker seems to embrace the idea of death and despair as an absolute sense of peace. “Death’s privilege?” – a rhetorical question, enhances this notion and suggests that death seems more attractive to her than a dull life.

Lines 21-24

Nor could I rise – with You –  Because Your Face Would put out Jesus’ –  That New Grace

Dickinson moves from the mortal to the spiritual realm in these lines. The speaker says that she cannot “rise” or ascend to heaven with her lover. This suggests the passing of the immortal soul to a higher place or the afterlife. The speaker says that her lover is so angelic and spiritually pure that he would immediately rise up to heaven after his mortal death and dim even Jesus’ divine countenance (indeed a hyperbole). But, she says, the same fate would not befall her. She would not be able to travel to heaven with her significant other to be with them. This is one of her most significant concerns.

Lines 25-28

Glow plain – and foreign On my homesick Eye –  Except that You than He Shone closer by –

In these lines beginning from the last line of the previous quatrain, Dickinson brings out the conflict of divinity and faith. She seems to express her own self through the speaker’s questioning of religion and faith. The speaker tells her lover that while they would ascend to heaven after their passing, she would be stuck on earth, completely alone, without any sort of support at all. She would not even have religious support.

The speaker’s love for her lover surpasses her inclination towards religion. She says that the lover is closer to her heart than God and that she therefore would not have the privilege of being in heaven with her significant other.

Lines 29-32

They’d judge Us – How –  For You – served Heaven – You know, Or sought to –  I could not –

These lines heighten the idea of doubting conventional religious faith. Since the speaker does not seem to be close to God, she feels she will not go to heaven. While she believes the lover will undoubtedly go there or seek to, she feels that they would not be reunited there. It is because she cannot get herself to “serve” blind faith as her lover does. In this way, she rejects the scope of going to heaven by hinting at her “moral” drawbacks.

Lines 33-36

Because You saturated Sight –  And I had no more Eyes For sordid excellence As Paradise

In these lines, the questioning of faith continues. The speaker talks highly of her lover, praising him in an almost divine manner. The way she speaks of his “saturated Sight” is very close to how one would speak of God. This enhances the idea that for the speaker, the romantic love she experiences with the lover is the only form of support and faith in her life. She does not have the same faith in the religion as the lover, and she seems to be very shattered by her inability to do so. According to her, this only heightens the gulf between her and the lover and represents the eternal inability of their union.

Lines 37-40

And were You lost, I would be –  Though My Name Rang loudest On the Heavenly fame –

There is a contrast built up in this quatrain – while Dickinson builds up these lines to differentiate the speaker from her lover, the line – “And were You lost, I would be –” indicates that the speaker considers herself so inseparable from her lover’s identity that she wouldn’t know who she is if not for him. This duality enhances the pain and despair felt by the speaker in communicating what her aching heart feels.

The idea of love is so complex that it seems to be made up of dualities and contrasts. She says here that if by any stroke of chance, she ascended to Heaven while the lover is “lost,” or not in heaven, she would be lost too. Even if she gets to enjoy all the rewards in heaven, she would not feel whole without him.

Lines 41-44

And were You – saved –  And I – condemned to be Where You were not –  That self – were Hell to Me –

In this stanza, the idea of eternal separation and dread is highlighted yet again. The speaker, in contrast to the previous stanza, says that if the lover were “saved” – which is to say that he gets into Heaven while she is “condemned” to be elsewhere; that would be “Hell” for her. The symbolic use of “Hell” is essential here – no matter where she is, she will be in torment and in hell without her lover. Whether it is literal hell or any other place, even if it is heaven, she would experience hell within her own mind without her lover.

Lines 45-50

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 speaker concludes her reasoning in the last stanza by saying that the lovers must be apart not to subject each other to these various torments. The use of “So” indicates that she summarizes her arguments and puts forth a final, albeit painful, solution. It would be the best thing for both of them to experience love for each other from a distance and continue to nurture it, rather than being together in a conventional manner and finally losing it. And while the existence would still be one of “despair,” the speaker seems to want that more because at least she would continue to love the addressee throughout her life, even if she does not share a life with him.

The Binaries of Love

Dickinson, in her poem “I cannot live with You,” brings to light that there isn’t just one definition and method to be in love. She points out how love can be as painful and monotonous as it is endearing and how it is not the only thing required to sustain life. The idea of entering into a domestic, societal idea of a relationship as a natural next step of love is being questioned in this poem. The critical aspect brought out is the monotony and dying away of affection that is the reality of many relationships but is not often spoken of. The speaker’s questioning of her own life and her ways is also telling of her unwillingness to share a life with her partner. She doesn’t think it possible for her to sustain the final, unfathomable separation that death will eventually bring.

Contrary to her other poems, Dickinson argues against the immortality of love after death. Her speaker knows that they cannot be reunited after death because they have led vastly different lives. She does not see them occupying the same afterlife. Thus, the extremes of love are intensified in this poem.

Individualism

One of the most important themes that Dickinson explores through “I cannot live with You” is the idea of individual life, especially a woman’s independent life. The speaker emerges as an extension of Dickinson herself – she valued individuality and lived a private, obscure life away from public view. Therefore, the fact that the speaker cherishes her freedom and feels like living with her lover would be like bondage is very important.

In the 19th-century, women hardly had any rights, and they were expected to follow a more or less laid-out pattern of life – get married, have children, and spend life in the confines of the home. The speaker challenges these notions and comes off as a powerful woman who is not afraid of expressing her needs. The very idea that she questions love to be the only defining force in her life and chooses instead to cherish the relationship she has with her lover in the present is very unconventional and bold.

Through the lines which talk about the speaker and the lover not being in the same place in the afterlife, Dickinson points out the incompatibility between the two lovers and how being in love will not automatically guarantee happiness or completion. Dickinson, therefore, champions the cause of individualism and questions the rigid, accepted mores of a relationship in conventional society.

In “I cannot live with You,” the various images and symbols used by the speaker to describe the undesirable life she anticipates with her lover are very unconventional. Dickinson uses a number of personal, everyday symbols, rather than universal ones, to point out the monotony and tedium the speaker foresees in her life. For instance, the speaker says she cannot live with her lover because the life she anticipates will be a monotonous, restrictive life that will inevitably render both of them empty and unhappy:

Like a Cup – Discarded of the Housewife – Quaint – or Broke – A newer Sevres pleases – Old Ones crack –

These lines indicate a symbol – the broken/dull Porcelain cup “discarded of the housewife” stands for the life that the speaker and her lover will lead after unification. The reference to a “newer Sevres” is an important symbol. Sevres is a kind of fine porcelain that is exceptionally luxurious due to the rich, detailed painting in the background. The speaker, therefore, explains that their life, should they choose to live together, would turn empty and unappealing even though they love each other due to their incompatibility. A “newer Sevres” piece possibly stands for a different kind of life or love that they would start craving to escape the boredom of their present life.

Dickinson also moves from the everyday symbolism to the immortal one in the poem. The symbols she uses at the end indicate a connection to the afterlife, and the speaker expresses the impossibility of their union even there. Hence, she wishes not to undergo such pain:

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 last stanza makes the connection between the present and the immortal – while most love poems deal with the idea of immortal love, the speaker of this poem says how it is impossible for the lovers to meet even after death. “Oceans” symbolize the distance that the lovers have to live with. Even though they love each other, they must be content with separation and longing rather than leading a domestic, married life together in order not to lose the spark of their love.

Historical Background

Emily Dickinson is one of the most renowned poets of all time in American literature. However, she was not very well known during her lifetime and led a life completely opposed to the kind of public life poets usually lived. Dickinson was a very private person who lived in obscurity and mystery for most of her life, having only a very small, close group of friends with whom she shared her intimate thoughts and poetry. She did not like being in the public limelight and instead cherished ideas of solitude and individual happiness.

A number of her poems give center stage to these ideas – she argues for her choices and champions her existence through poetry. Written in her most creative period, the poem “I cannot live with You” (1862) too brings to light the idea of living an individual life that is interesting rather than a lonely life despite being surrounded by people. It is also essential to understand that women were not allowed to voice their opinions and choices of living their own lives, and hence this poem becomes even more important in this regard.

The speaker is unapologetic and clear about what she wants. Even though her love for her significant other is endless, she cannot see herself living the conventional idea of love. It would be considered unthinkable for women to have such opinions in rigid, orthodox society. Therefore, challenging patriarchal conventions is something that Dickinson brings out throughout this piece.

Questions and Answers

Dickinson’s “I cannot live with You” deals with a very different view of a romantic relationship – two lovers who love each other but cannot live together. The fact that the poem talks about domesticity and societal confines as eventually wearing away love in a relationship make it unique. Also, while other love poems argue for the immortality of love, Dickinson argues against it by talking about how lovers cannot be united after death. Their love can only be sustained through separation and despair.

In “I cannot live with You,” Dickinson gives voice to a woman of the 19th-century who expresses her thoughts about her inability to live with the person she loves. A woman moving away from the conventional social mores of the time to live life on her own terms would be almost unthinkable during the time. The speaker is clear about what she wants and does not want to be confined by one idea of love dictated by society. The very fact that Dickinson expresses these radical ideas makes it a feminist poem.

Emily Dickinson’s poem “I cannot live with You” expresses the innermost, painful thoughts of a speaker who addresses her lover to say that she cannot live with him despite being in love. She cites various reasons for her decision, talking about the monotony and dullness that would eventually befall their lives, making them fall out of love. She also stresses how they would not be able to unite after their deaths, and then the incompleteness she would feel would surpass the love they shared throughout their lives. Thus, she suggests that they should love each other as they do, apart.

Dickinson did not title her poems. When the early editors, her friends, Todd and Higginson, picked this piece up, they thought it would be better to title the poem “In Vain” due to its high sentimentality on the issues of love, life, death, and separation. However, T. H. Johnson felt it fitting just to number the poem 640 and all the other poems in the way Dickinson did while writing. Due to the uncertain shift of ideas, it is hard to locate the key (title) to open the doors of this poem. However, after reading this piece, it seems safe to consider the first line as the poem’s apt title. It is because the speaker advocates for not living together with her lover. She provides reasons why she cannot truly “live” or exist at the same place and time with him.

The confession style in poetry emerged in the late 1950s and early 1960s, decades after Dickinson’s death. In a confessional poem, a first-person speaker focuses on their extreme moments of individual experience, their psyche, and personal trauma that includes mental illness, sexuality, and suicide. Therefore, such poetry is highly personal and penned during a troublesome point of a poet’s life. Dickinson wrote “I cannot live with You” during her most creative year, 1862. In Philadelphia, Dickinson met Charles Wadsworth, with whom she forged a strong friendship lasting until his death in 1882. She met him only twice, and Wadsworth moved to San Francisco in 1862. In the mid-1850s, Dickinson’s mother became sick with various chronic illnesses. The sickening and heart-wrenching events that occurred during that period made her withdraw more from the outside world. It was during that time she penned this compelling verse. Her speaker also reflects the mental tension that was tearing her apart. Alongside, her mode of presenting the arguments also reflects a sense of bipolarity of her mind. In this way, this poem becomes a prototype of early confessional poetry.

Dickinson was not a highly devotional person. She valued spirituality at a personal level more than at a congregation. However, her verse does not reflect her religious stance. In her poem “I cannot live with You,” she talks about why she cannot lead a conjugal life with her partner as she cannot either live, die, or ascend together. While focusing on her arguments, she does use a great deal of religious or church symbolism, such as the “Sexton,” “Porcelain,” the countenance of Jesus, “Heaven,” and “Hell.” She also hints at the Christian concepts of the afterlife, ascension, and divine grace. Due to the presence of these pious elements, one can say it is partially a religious lyric. But, it indeed taps on religious themes to comment on her personal ideas of devotion, seclusion (or withdrawal), and morality.

In The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson (1955), Thomas H. Higginson dated the poem to be composed in 1862. It was first published in Dickinson’s posthumous collection, Poems (1890).

Dickinson’s “I cannot live with You” is a lyric poem consisting of eleven quatrains and a six-line stanza at the end. It is loosely written using the ABCB rhyme scheme. The meter shifts between iambic trimeter and iambic dimeter with a few variations of iambic tetrameter and iambic monometer. Besides, Dickinson writes this poem from the perspective of a lyrical first-person speaker.

This poem explores a number of themes, such as the dualities of love, the futility of life, the inevitability of death, separation, and the satisfaction in despair. The overall poem is a lover’s letter to her loved one concerning her arguments of individualism and withdrawal.

In 1862, Dickinson lost touch with her close friend Charles Wadsworth she met only a few times. Their friendship was strong and lasted until Wadsworth died in 1882. In the year prior to 1862, her mother became bedridden. Both these incidents had a lasting imprint on her mind. Her poem “I cannot live with You” taps on a topic that echoes the separation of Dickinson and Wadsworth. Besides, her mother’s state would also be a reason to pen down this piece. Overall, this poem is about how the futility of life, the inevitability of death, and the uncertainty of mutual ascension to heaven make a speaker think it is impossible to be with the one she loves. So, it’s better to withdraw herself and live on “White Sustenance,” that is “Despair.”

Sèvres is a kind of fine porcelain that is produced in a commune by the same name in the southwestern suburbs of Paris, France. It is characterized by elaborate decoration on backgrounds of intense color. In this poem, Dickinson uses “Sevres” metaphorically to compare it to human beings. When a housewife finds one such porcelain to be broken or unusable, she replaces it with a new piece. Similarly, when someone finds their partner incompatible in a relationship, they find another to fill the “gap.”

The speaker cannot live with her loved one due to the futility of married life, the inevitability of death, and the uncertainty of conjugal ascension to heaven. Besides, she thinks there is no guarantee that they can live together in the same mental time and space even though they are together physically.

Dickinson beautifully touches upon the inner workings of the mind in “I cannot live with You.” Her poetic persona reveals her mental tension with regards to the topics such as life, death, and the afterlife. She produces a number of solid arguments to back her choice, which is highly “Quaint” in respect to the then social mores. Moreover, the poet, through the shifting metrical pattern and unusual line lengths, depicts how the speaker’s mind struggles to put an end to her relationship.

The speaker points, “And Life is over there –” But the question is where their life can be found? From the last line of the first quatrain, she starts answering. According to her, a life loved together is like the Sexton’s porcelain kept with caution and with due safety behind the locked shelves. The shelf’s key is not in the lovers’ hands. Someone else has the authority over their lives. This “Sexton” can be a symbolic reference to “Death.”

Sexton is a person who looks after a church, rings the church bell, and digs graves. In this poem, Dickinson refers to one such Sexton who keeps the key to their conjugal life metaphorically compared to “Porcelain” safely kept behind the shelf. Does Dickinson really talk about a real Sexton here? The answer is no. She is figuratively personifying death as a sexton associated with digging graves. Through this extended metaphor, Dickinson hints at the control of their life in death’s hands who has the “Key” of their love’s “Shelf.”

The central idea of the poem revolves around a speaker’s inability to continue to love with her partner. She gives various grounded reasons not to lead a married life with him even though her heart longs to do so. She chooses “Despair” over completion and seclusion over coexistence.

Explore Similar Emily Dickinson Poems

• “ I’m “wife” — I’ve finished that — ” — The power of Dickinson’s unique echoes through the poem; it can be read as a complementary piece to “I cannot live with You.”
• “ If you were coming in the Fall ” — It’s about a speaker who pines to be with her lover and is ready to wait throughout her life, even after death, till eternity.
• “ The Brain, within its Groove ” — Want to know more about the inner workings of the mind? Dive deeper into this splintery Dickinson piece.
• “ I had no time to hate, because ” — Is Dickinson too busy to hate/love someone, or is there some other reason for her choice? Probably, the inevitability of death makes her say so?

External Resources

• Check out The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson (1955) — For Dickinson lovers, having this scholarly edition of the exact versions of her poems is a must.
• The Adulterated Version: “In Vain” — Read the edited version of “I cannot live with You,” first published in Book II – “Love” of Poems (1890) under the title “In Vain.”
• Her Love Life — Dickinson wrote such powerful and unique love lyrics; there must be someone she loved so much?
• About Emily Dickinson — Learn more about the poet’s life and her career, and explore some of her best-known poetry.

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I cannot live with you by Emily Dickinson Analysis

• by Guiding Literature
• July 31, 2022 July 31, 2022

About the poet –

Emily Elizabeth Dickinson was an American poet. She has been regarded as one of the most important figures in American poetry. Dickinson lived much of her life in isolation. While Dickinson was a prolific writer, her only publications during her lifetime were 10 of her nearly 1,800 poems, and one letter. The poems published then were usually edited significantly to fit conventional poetic rules. Her poems were unique for her era. They contain short lines, typically lack titles, use unconventional capitalization and punctuation.

Read the Poem

“I cannot live with You — It would be Life — And Life is over there — Behind the Shelf”

This poem was written for a person that had offered a love proposal to the poet. In an answer to the proposal, the poet had written this poem. The first line begins with the same words as the title. Here the poet tells the person that she cannot live with him. She says that living with him would be ‘a life’. However, she later explains the reason behind her refusal of the proposal. She says that such a life would be confined and restricted just like staying ‘behind the shelves’. It would be a dull, monotonous life.

The Sexton keeps the Key to — Putting up Our Life — His Porcelain — Like a Cup —

The Sexton is a church official whose work is to look after the churchyard. He is also referred to a gravedigger. In those days, people were often buried alive. The safety coffins had a bell inside them. So if someone wakes up suddenly, they could ring the bell, and the Sexton would dig them up and save them. Here, the poetess uses this reference to relate to her own life. The Sexton is used here to refer someone who has complete control of the poet’s life. The poet believes her to be completely dead from inside. The speaker feels as if she has no control over her life. Someone might come and take the control, just like a Sexton is in control of the life of the person buried. The significance of ‘Porcelain Cup’ refers to a showpiece that looks beautiful from the outside but is hollow from the inside just like the cup. The poet relates this to her life that would be if she agrees to marry that person.

Discarded of the Housewife — Quaint — or Broke — A newer Sevres pleases — Old Ones crack —

In the third stanza, the poet gives another point of reasoning to support her decision. She continues to explain her earlier words about Porcelain cups. The Porcelain or decorative cups are discarded by the housewives when they are broken. Now, she gives the control of her life from a Sexton to a housewife. The poet feels as if she is also discarded as if she is broken or outdated. She imagines herself being replaced by newer Porcelain cups, as old ones have developed cracks. She believes that she could not accept the proposal because one day she might as well be replaced just like the Porcelain cups.

The poetess feels lost in her life. She feels as if she is being controlled by external forces like the sexton or the housewife in this poem. This poem symbolizes a refusal to live with the lover. That lover might offer to give the poet a life of her own. However, she refuses such an offer, because she believes that the life isn’t accessible to her. She would ultimately be used and discarded.

I could not die — with You — For One must wait To shut the Other’s Gaze down — You — could not —

Till this point, the poet had been refusing to live with her lover. But now she refuses to die with that person. This means that someone has offered her to spend her entire life with him, which she declines. She offers a reason for her refusal as well. She says that one person must not die until the other person has died, so that one can shut the eyes of the dead. The poet’s idea of love is quite peculiar. She solely refuses the proposal of this person in a fear of being discarded. Even if she would not be discarded, one of the lovers would have to watch the other die, which would be a painful scene. Thus, the poet would ignore love altogether rather than face the loss of her lover.

And I — Could I stand by And see You — freeze — Without my Right of Frost — Death’s privilege?

Here, the poet reveals her pain of watching her lover die. She says that she couldn’t just stand there and watch her lover die. If she would ever had to face such a tragedy, she would rather choose herself to be in the lover’s place of death. Yet, she knows that life doesn’t work that way.

Nor could I rise — with You — Because Your Face Would put out Jesus’ — That New Grace

Now, the poem takes another shocking turn. After refusing to love, and die with her lover, the poet now refuses to ‘rise’ with him. The word ‘rise’ here refers to resurrection after death. During that era, people believed that those who are followers of Jesus, would resurrect from the dead just like Him. The poet claims that she doesn’t wish to be resurrected with her lover because the face of that person would even outshine Jesus’s face. The poet knows that Jesus’s face shines the brightest among all. But she says that if the lover resurrected, his face would even leave Jesus behind. The poet believes that this would be wrong, and thus makes it as one of her decisions to marry that person.

Glow plain — and foreign On my homesick Eye — Except that You than He Shone closer by —

Here, the poet says that the face of her lover would even make Jesus’s face seem plain and dull. This doesn’t seem to be the right idea to the poet. The word ‘homesick eye’ means that rather than searching for ‘New Heaven’ and ‘New Earth’ as the Christians are taught, this poet would miss living in her Old Earth. The capitalization of the word ‘You’ signifies that the poet compares the lover with God Himself. Here He refers to Jesus and You refers to the lover. The poet believes these feelings are wrong, and hence refuses the idea of marriage.

They’d judge Us — How — For You — served Heaven — You know, Or sought to — I could not —

Here, it is confusing, who ‘they’ refers to. This might be a reference to the people present during the Final Resurrection. It might also mean the family, friends of the present time. The lover is a person who follows the Gods and serves to him. However, the poet has no desire to serve in Heaven. Therefore, their relationship would be judged by the people, and hence it is one of the reasons behind her refusal.

Because You saturated Sight — And I had no more Eyes For sordid excellence As Paradise

The poet continues to give reasons for her refusal. Her lover had saturated her sight, which implies that she no more wants to look at a higher world, or the Paradise. A Christian is always taught to look at the Heaven. However, by stating that she has no desire to look at the Heaven, the poet refers to her absence of faith in religion. Therefore, both their hearts are the opposite and hence they cannot marry.

And were You lost, I would be — Though My Name Rang loudest On the Heavenly fame —

The poet continues in giving arguments supporting her decision of not to marry. Now she says that if the lover of the poet ever gets lost, she would be lost with him too. She feels incomplete without him. If she finds a position in Heaven, and her lover is lost, she would not find peace even in the Heaven alone.

And were You — saved — And I — condemned to be Where You were not — That self — were Hell to Me —

This stanza also highlights the pain of separation of the two lovers. This stanza is the contrast to the earlier stanza where she talked about her getting a seat in the Heaven. Now she says that if her lover is saved instead of her, and he gets a seat in the Heaven, while she gets into somewhere else, she would still be broken hearted. The pain of separation just makes her vulnerable. She feels that she would be completely lost without her lover. A place without her lover with her would be ‘Hell’ for her.

So We must meet apart — You there — I — here — With just the Door ajar That Oceans are — and Prayer — And that White Sustenance — Despair –

In the last stanza of the poem, the poet concludes that the two lovers must not come together in order to avoid all the torments they would suffer. It would be their best decision to stay apart from each other. They must remain apart with the Door ajar. She explains that oceans and prayers are trying to create a door between their love. His prayers and faith in religion is something the poet could never relate, and hence it would create separation just like the oceans. These things bring her heart a feeling that she calls the ‘White Sustenance’ which is the feeling of despair. Because the two lovers can never unite, it makes her heart gloomy.

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Emily Dickinson: "I cannot live with You" (Poem 640)

Emily Dickinson's poem, introduced by Steven Cramer and read aloud by poets Lucie Brock-Broido, Steven Cramer, and Mary Jo Salter (April 14, 1999)

W hat we don't know about Emily Dickinson fills many books. The identity of the man she called "Master" in her poems and her letters; the nature of the "terror" that she "could tell to none," which informs many of her major lyrics; whether carnal knowledge lay behind her intensely erotic imagination—these and other mysteries have produced a small library of speculation. And as for the poems themselves, critics endlessly debate Dickinson's images, tones, intentions, and sources.

There's another mystery, which has to do with the poems as scripts for performance. Anyone who has read Dickinson with care knows how her insistent rhythms, pauses, and gaps or splices of thought create an unmistakable "voice" that infiltrates and colonizes the mind of the silent reader. Similarly, anyone who has heard, say, Aaron Copland's song cycle based on twelve Dickinson poems knows how beautifully her work can be set and sung. But how should her poems be said ? She carefully preserved her work, so we can assume she intended it to be read—but did she intend it to be read out loud? Given all of her infamous ambiguities—eccentric punctuation, indeterminate parts of speech, phrases that "float" syntactically—to decide how we say a Dickinson poem is, to a large extent, to decide what it means.

"I cannot live with You" (poem 640 in Thomas Johnson's edition of the Complete Poems ) is Dickinson's longest mature lyric, addressed to a recognizably human, hopelessly loved other, and employing the structure and rhetoric of a persuasive argument. Here it is.

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 —

Although it is one of Dickinson's more "spoken" poems, "I cannot live with You" still confronts the performer with a number of characteristic challenges. Consider the first sentence—or rather, what the poem's first sentence may or may not entail. Arguably, it encompasses the entirety of the first three stanzas. Punctuated conventionally, with elided logical connectives interpolated, its prose sense might read as follows: "I cannot live with you [because] it would be life, and life is over there, behind the shelf the sexton keeps the key to, putting up our life, [which is] his porcelain, like a cup discarded of the housewife—quaint or broke—a newer Sevres pleases, [after] old ones crack." Those very elisions are, of course, crucial to the poem's stark authority of tone, but they also create a sentence very difficult to parse, to understand, and thus to speak aloud with confidence. My paraphrase places "His Porcelain" in apposition to "Our Life," but it could represent the start of a participial phrase introducing a new detail ("his porcelain like a cup"). Notice also how "Quaint — or Broke" interrupts what we may take as a noun clause ("the housewife ... a newer Sevres pleases"), and thus wryly modifies both wife and cup—the former by proximity, the latter by common sense. Yet an equally plausible reading supplies a full stop after "broke," understands "pleases" as an intransitive verb, and regards "a newer Sevres pleases" as a remark on the general aesthetic pleasure afforded by a new set of French porcelain.

In stanza seven, the reader must negotiate the complicated syntax of "Except that You than He/ Shone closer by"—a weird inversion even by nineteenth-century standards of poetic license. A final challenge waits in the eighth stanza, when the speaker asserts that "They'd judge Us," then interjects the qualification "How." The odd placement of this word offers three alternate senses—and hence three alternate ways of saying it—if attached grammatically to "They'd judge Us," "For You," or even "You know." This last possibility is my current choice. When the sentence is unscrambled, it yields: "you know how they'd judge us, for you served heaven." On the other hand, one might treat it as a freestanding rhetorical question, posed by the speaker in response to her own assertion, then answered by the rest of the stanza. This is the choice Dickinson's first editors made in their revised, heavily repunctuated, and ultimately repudiated 1890 edition of Dickinson's poems. They also changed "broke" to "broken," "white sustenance" to "pale sustenance," and titled the poem "In Vain."

There are other elements that contribute to the poem's rich uncertainties: elaborately extended metaphors, shifts in tense and mood, riddling paradoxes (How can "Life" cause an incapacity to live? What might it mean to "meet apart"?), and abrupt reversals of scale ("the Door ajar/ That Oceans are"). And yet, even if we can't solve every linguistic conundrum, let alone satisfy ourselves with a uniform way of saying it, "I cannot live with You" remains one of Dickinson's most powerfully direct expressions of longing and loss.

A three-part argument against erotic union (I cannot live with you, die with you, or share the Resurrection with you, as either one of the damned or the saved), the poem ever more forcefully registers the desire for fulfillment each time it asserts the inevitability of disappointment. Indeed, there's something blasphemous about a love so total it outshines divinity, equates "prayer" with "despair" (the poem's most telling rhyme), and finally associates the latter with, of all things, the bread of the Eucharist. Dickinson doesn't take the conventional path of renouncing earthly love in favor of a more compelling, divine love; she refuses it because it is the more powerful of the two.

In the course of her argument Dickinson offers remarkably detailed character portraits of both the speaker and the beloved. It's been suggested that the line "For You — served Heaven — You know" reveals the beloved's identity as the Reverend Charles Wadsworth (also a prime candidate for "Master"). More intriguing is the sort of man depicted in the poem: ambivalent or incompetent in his faith ("You served Heaven ... Or sought to"); charismatic, handsome ("Your Face/ Would put out Jesus' —"), and rather squeamish—or simply impatient?—when it comes to performing a final gesture of love ("For One must wait/ To shut the Other's Gaze down —/ You — could not —").

Tensions between the speaker's competing allegiances register forcefully. No orthodox believer herself, she recognizes both the allure and strictures of the Church, honoring yet manipulating some of its central emblems to make her case. She is also audacious enough to imagine a death pact with her lover whereby she claims the "Right of Frost" as her "privilege." Unapologetically passionate, she imagines her sight "saturated" by her lover's presence, rendering any other excellence—even the Christian Paradise—degraded in comparison. And in a glorious rendition of love's twin poles of self-sacrifice and greed, stanzas ten and eleven make plain that while she'd be lost in Heaven if he were damned, she'll be damned if she'll surrender him to salvation.

The final stanza seems to me one of the most overwhelmingly pained and resigned protests in verse. For Dickinson—the recluse who, paradoxically, valued personal attachments more highly than almost any other life experience—separation from a loved one amounts to Hell. The last six lines forsake the symmetry of the previous eleven quatrains, and desolation inheres in each syllable and juncture: in the choked finality of the heavy stresses and strong caesuras ("You there — I — here"); in the emotional abyss that opens with an enjambment ("With just the Door ajar/ That Oceans are"); in the oxymoronic precision of "meet apart" and "White Sustenance —/ Despair." In this stanza and in hundreds of others, Dickinson resembles Shakespeare, one of the few other poets in English to achieve such a level of volcanic energy. To my mind and ear, no other American poet comes close.

Copyright © 1999 by The Atlantic Monthly Company. All rights reserved. Poem #640 ("I cannot live with You"), by Emily Dickinson, from The Poems of Emily Dickinson , Thomas H. Johnson, ed., Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Copyright © 1951, 1955, 1979, 1983 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. All rights reserved. Used by permission of the publishers and the Trustees of Amherst College.