Half a Heart

Come, I will give thee half a heart
If that will do to love;
And if I give thee all, dear friend,
It would but worthless prove.

Thou art too good to see or know
The ills that in me dwell:
It is most right to keep our faults
From those we love so well.
So then I warn thee, do not think
My fitful love untrue:
I have another, darker self,
Which thou must sometimes view.

Men take me, change me if they may,
And love me if they can;
Few can do that; few choose, like thee,
A double-hearted man.

My better self shall be thy friend,
My worse self not thy foe,
And to love light in time perchance,
May make my darkness go.

If I should seem to play thee false,
Then pour thy love through prayer:
It is the fit; my better heart
Withdraws itself elsewhere.

And weary not if I do still
New light or gloom disclose:
What else in sooth can poets be
But men whom no one knows?