Keeping a Heart

Arthur O'Shaughnessy

1844 to 1881

Poem Image
Track 1

Reconstruct the poem by dragging each line into its correct position. Your goal is to reassemble the original poem as accurately as possible. As you move the lines, you'll see whether your arrangement is correct, helping you explore the poem's flow and meaning. You can also print out the jumbled poem to cut up and reassemble in the classroom. Either way, take your time, enjoy the process, and discover how the poet's words come together to create something truly beautiful.

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To dwell in a life apart,
With love for the golden key,
Of old, and nothing seems changed.
It should ne'er know pain, be weary, or weep, 
Its chaste marmoreal beauty rare
My good should be done, my gift be given,
I would keep that heart as the thought of heaven, 
Never to open it more.
A memory each; as you raise the lid,
From within we should close the door 
You think you love again as you did 
I would keep that heart as a casket hid 
I would keep that heart as a temple fair,
And so on the eve of some blissful day, 
The heart watched over by me.
As a heart that I held with a golden spell, 
That heart would be changeless too.
Where precious jewels are ranged,
If one should give me a heart to keep, 
In that heart shut up from the world away,
How I should tremble day after day, 
But ah, I should know that heart so well, 
I only should know, and to enter there 
As I touched with the golden key, 
My life should be led in that heart.
The giver might live at ease or sleep;
I must hold myself from sin.
Lest aught in the heart were changed, or say 
No heathen should look therein;
On glimmering splendours of love, and stay 
That another had stolen one thought away 
And it did not open to me.
As a heart so loving and true, 
In hope of the recompense there; yea, even
That so long as I changed not I could foretell