​”OF SUCH AS I HAVE.” 

By Susan Coolidge

 Love me for what I am, Love. Not for sake   

Of some imagined thing which I might be,   

Some brightness or some goodness not in me,   

Born of your hope, as dawn to eyes that wake   

Imagined morns before the morning break.   

If I, to please you (whom I fain would please),   

Reset myself like new key to old tune,   

Chained thought, remodelled action, very soon   

My hand would slip from yours, and by degrees   

The loving, faulty friend, so close to-day,   

Would vanish, and another take her place, —   

A stranger with a stranger’s scrutinies,   

A new regard, an unfamiliar face.   Love me for what I am, then, if you may;   

But, if you cannot,—love me either way.  

*Found this poem by one of my favorite authors. The main title, which is mine, is what I felt when I read the poem!