If one should give me a heart to keep

If one should give me a heart to keep,
With love for the golden key,
The giver might live at ease or sleep;
It should ne'er know pain, be weary, or weep,
The heart watched over by me.
I would keep that heart as a temple fair,
No heathen should look therein;
Its chaste marmoreal beauty rare
I only should know, and to enter there
I must hold myself from sin.
I would keep that heart as a casket hid
Where precious jewels are ranged,
A memory each; as you raise the lid,
You think you love again as you did
Of old, and nothing seems changed.
How I should tremble day after day,
As I touched with the golden key,
Lest aught in that heart were changed, or say
That another had stolen one thought away
And it did not open to me.
But ah, I should know that heart so well,
As a heart so loving and true,
As a heart that I held with a golden spell,
That so long as I changed not I could foretell
That heart would be changeless too.
I would keep that heart as the thought of heaven
To dwell in a life apart,
My good should be done, my gift be given,
In hope of the recompense there; yea, even
My life should be led in that heart.