“I cannot live with You –” Introduction

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“I cannot live with You –” Summary

“I cannot live with You –” Themes

• 

  The Agony of Impossible Love

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• 

  Fear, Avoidance, and Isolation

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• 

  Love vs. Religion

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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “I cannot live with You –”

• Lines 1-5

  I cannot live with You –
  It would be Life –
  And Life is over there –
  Behind the Shelf
  The Sexton keeps the key to –

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 6-12

  Putting up
  Our Life – his Porcelain –
  Like a Cup –
  Discarded of the Housewife –
  Quaint – or Broke –
  A newer Sevres pleases –
  Old Ones crack –

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 13-16

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

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 17-20

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

  

  

  

  

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• 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 –

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 29-32

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

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 33-36

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

  

  

  

  

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• 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 –

  

  

  

  

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• 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 –

  

  

  

  

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“I cannot live with You –” Symbols

• 

  The Sexton and the Housewife

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

• Metaphor

  

  

  

  

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• Allusion

  

  

  

  

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• Enjambment

  

  

  

  

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• Irony

  

  

  

  

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• Simile

  

  

  

  

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“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.

• Sexton
• Putting up
• Quaint
• Sevres
• Nor could I rise – with You –
• Sought to
• Saturated
• Sordid
• The Heavenly fame
• Sustenance

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

• Form

• Meter

• 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—

  • A Word dropped careless on a Page

  • 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

  • Shipwreck

  • 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!