In Vain

<SPAN name="startofbook"></SPAN> <h5 id="id00235"> IN VAIN.</h5> <p id="id00236">I cannot live with you,<br/> It would be life,<br/> And life is over there<br/> Behind the shelf<br/></p> <p id="id00237">The sexton keeps the key to,<br/> Putting up<br/> Our life, his porcelain,<br/> Like a cup<br/></p> <p id="id00238">Discarded of the housewife,<br/> Quaint or broken;<br/> A newer Sevres pleases,<br/> Old ones crack.<br/></p> <p id="id00239">I could not die with you,<br/> For one must wait<br/> To shut the other's gaze down, —<br/> You could not.<br/></p> <p id="id00240">And I, could I stand by<br/> And see you freeze,<br/> Without my right of frost,<br/> Death's privilege?<br/></p> <p id="id00241">Nor could I rise with you,<br/> Because your face<br/> Would put out Jesus',<br/> That new grace<br/></p> <p id="id00242">Glow plain and foreign<br/> On my homesick eye,<br/> Except that you, than he<br/> Shone closer by.<br/></p> <p id="id00243">They'd judge us — how?<br/> For you served Heaven, you know,<br/> Or sought to;<br/> I could not,<br/></p> <p id="id00244">Because you saturated sight,<br/> And I had no more eyes<br/> For sordid excellence<br/> As Paradise.<br/></p> <p id="id00245">And were you lost, I would be,<br/> Though my name<br/> Rang loudest<br/> On the heavenly fame.<br/></p> <p id="id00246">And were you saved,<br/> And I condemned to be<br/> Where you were not,<br/> That self were hell to me.<br/></p> <p id="id00247">So we must keep apart,<br/> You there, I here,<br/> With just the door ajar<br/> That oceans are,<br/> And prayer,<br/> And that pale sustenance,<br/> Despair!<br/></p> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />