"Because that you are going " By Emily Dickinson [Analysis]

Because that you are going [1] And never coming back [2] And I, however absolute, [3] May overlook your Track -- [4] Because that Death is final, [5] However first it be, [6] This instant be suspended [7] Above Mortality -- [8] Significance that each has lived [9] The other to detect [10] Discovery not God himself [11] Could now annihilate [12] Eternity, Presumption [13] The instant I perceive [14] That you, who were Existence [15] Yourself forgot to live -- [16] The "Life that is" will then have been [17] A thing I never knew -- [18] As Paradise fictitious [19] Until the Realm of you -- [20] The "Life that is to be," to me, [21] A Residence too plain [22] Unless in my Redeemer's Face [23] I recognize your own -- [24] Of Immortality who doubts [25] He may exchange with me [26] Curtailed by your obscuring Face [27] Of everything but He -- [28] Of Heaven and Hell I also yield [29] The Right to reprehend [30] To whoso would commute this Face [31] For his less priceless Friend. [32] If "God is Love" as he admits [33] We think that me must be [34] Because he is a "jealous God" [35] He tells us certainly [36] If "All is possible with" him [37] As he besides concedes [38] He will refund us finally [39] Our confiscated Gods -- [40]
Poem 1260 [F1314] "Because that you are going" Analysis by David Preest [Poem]

Emily analyses her relationship with her beloved master, just as in poem 640. In this poem she is saying farewell to him in this life. To paraphrase: Because you are never coming back and because, however absolute my devotion to you, I may lose sight of you until the finality of Death, we should suspend above the power of death this moment of farewell and the knowledge that we have found and discovered each other. (1-12)

other. (1-12) You were my 'Existence,' and now that I perceive that you are leaving me and so have forgotten to live as though you were my 'Existence,' I can only presume that there will be an Eternity where we can meet again. (13-16) When we meet in Eternity, the 'life that is' [to be after your departure] will seem like 'a thing I never knew,' just as the Paradise of the 'life that is to be' will seem fictitious until you share its Realm with me, and 'a residence too plain' unless I recognise your face in my Redeemer's. (17-24) Anyone who doubts that there is Immortality in store for us could enjoy heaven in my place because I shall be doing nothing but gaze into my Redeemer's face with your face also seen in it and shutting out everything else. (25-28) Also, as I shall see your face in the face of my Redeemer, I shall leave any criticism of Heaven and Hell to him who might see in his Redeemer's face the face of 'his less priceless Friend.' (29-32) Anyway as God's assertion that he is a 'jealous God' is true because he has taken you from me, it could be that his claims that he is 'Love' and can do all things are also true. And if this is so, he will give you back to me in heaven as one of my 'confiscated Gods.' (37-40)
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