The Poetry Corner

Karolin's Song

By Ben Jonson

Though I am young, and cannot tell, Either what love, or death is well, Yet I have heard, yet both bear darts, And both do aim at human hearts: And then again, I have been told 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; Or to our end, like way may have, By a flash of lightning, or a wave: So loves inflamed shaft, or brand, May kill as soon as deaths cold hand; Except loves fires the virtue have To fright the frost from out the grave.