The speaker begins by telling us how meticulously he used to protect his belongings—stashing every little trifle under lock and key so no dishonest hands could get them. But now he admits that the one thing he actually values, the person he calls his “jewel,” is left completely unguarded. All that carefulness for worthless stuff, yet his greatest comfort and dearest love is exposed to any common thief.
He hasn’t hidden this person away in a chest, except within his own heart, where he feels they live. But even that safe place feels vulnerable, because a prize this precious might tempt even someone honest to steal. The mood is anxious and quietly heartbroken—a love poem built around a paradox: the one treasure worth keeping safe is the one he can’t bear to lock up, and so he’s left fearing loss from everywhere, even from truth itself.