| William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Elizabethan Verse. 1907. | | | | Love and Death | | By Ben Jonson (1572–1637) |
| | | THOUGH I am young and cannot tell | |
| Either what Death or Love is well, | |
| Yet I have heard they both bear darts, | |
| And both do aim at human hearts; | |
| And then again, I have been told, | 5 |
| Love wounds with heat, as Death with cold; | |
| So that I fear they do but bring | |
| Extremes to touch, and mean one thing. | |
| As in a ruin we it call | |
| One thing to be blown up, or fall; | 10 |
| Or to our end like way may have | |
| By a flash of lightning, or a wave: | |
| So Love’s inflamèd shaft or brand, | |
| May kill as soon as Death’s cold hand; | |
| Except Love’s fires the virtue have | 15 |
| To fright the frost out of the grave. | | | | |
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