Never give all the heart, for love
Will hardly seem worth thinking of
To passionate women if it seem
Certain, and they never dream
That it fades out from kiss to kiss;
For everything that's lovely is
But a brief, dreamy, kind delight.
O never give the heart outright,
For they, for all smooth lips can say,
Have given their hearts up to the play.
And who could play it well enough
If deaf and dumb and blind with love?
He that made this knows all the cost,
For he gave all his heart and lost.

Secrets, you said, would hold us two apart;
    You’d have me know of you your least transgression
And so the intimate places of your heart,
    Kneeling, you bared to me, as in confession.
Softly you told of loves that went before,—
    Of clinging arms, of kisses gladly given;
Luxuriously clean of heart once more,
    You rose up, then, and stood before me, shriven.

When this, my day of happiness, is through,
    And love, that bloomed so fair, turns brown and brittle,
There is a thing that I shall ask of you—
    I, who have given so much, and asked so little.
Some day, when there’s another in my stead;
    Again you’ll feel the need of absolution,
And you will go to her, and bow your head,
    And offer her your past, as contribution.

When with your list of loves you overcome her,
For Heaven’s sake, keep this one secret from her!