Monday

" I Cannot Live With You" by Emily Dickinson

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 broken;
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 keep apart,
You there, I here,
With just the door ajar
That oceans are,
And prayer,
And that pale sustenance,
Despair!

I read on a website that this was one of Emily Dickinson's most famous poems, but after I read it, I don't really get why. It's a good poem and it has great symbolism in it, but I personally didn't like it at first.She's basically saying how much she hates staying apart from her "lover" or whoever she is writing about. She says that they can't die together, they can't come back from the dead together, they can't be judged by God together, and how they can't live together in this world. The whole time I was reading this I kept thinking, why can't they do any of that together? Maybe they live in different countries or maybe she's in love with an animal or something that she cannot live with. Then I kind of liked the poem at the end because it ended up to be really ironic and comical. She ends up deciding to reject her lover and choses to write poetry over being with him. I thought it was really funny because she goes on a huge passionate rant about her despair of not being able to be with him for no reason because in the end, she chooses poetry over him anyway. That's hardcore dedication.

"Because I Could Not Stop for Death" by Emily Dickinson

Because I could not stop for Death—
He kindly stopped for me—
The Carriage held but just Ourselves—
And Immortality.

We slowly drove—He knew no haste
And I had put away
My labor and my leisure too,
For His Civility—

We passed the School, where Children strove
At Recess—in the Ring—
We passed the fields of Gazing Grain—
We passed the Setting Sun—

Or rather—He passed Us—
The Dews drew quivering and chill—
For only Gossamer, my Gown—
My Tippet—only Tulle—

We paused before a House that seemed
A Swelling of the Ground—
The Roof was scarcely visible—
The Cornice—in the Ground—

Since then—'tis Centuries—and yet
Feels shorter than the Day
I first surmised the Horses' Heads
Were toward Eternity—

This is one of my favorite poems by Emily Dickinson. I'm sure it can be interpreted in many different ways, sometimes I think that famous poets didn't even know what they ment to write about, they just made it so obtuse and let us readers come up with something meaningful about their poetry. But in this case, I really do think that Emily Dickinson wanted to convey an insighful meaning. I think this poem represents immortality. The narrator is talking about her peaceful journey alongside death, just like they are equals. When it talks about children playing, the narrator could be having flashbacks of her childhood and at the end, she mentions eternity, which to me, is like the end of her life. My favorite line in this poem was "Because I could not stop for Death—He kindly stopped for me—" because it personifies death and makes it sound as if death is an equal to us all.