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