Songs by Ben Jonson: A Selection from the Plays, Masques, and Poems, with the Earliest Known Settings of Certain Numbers
Ben Jonson. Eragny Press, London, 1906.
Printed in red and black on vellum. Colored frontispiece, border and initials by Lucien Pissarro, engraved by Esther Pissarro. Small 8vo, gilt-lettered red calf with gilt leaf design on turn-ins, by Blackwell, joints starting, upper tips bumped. Norman J. Sondheim bookplate. Dedication Copy. One of only ten copies on vellum.
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Though I Am Young and Cannot Tell
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
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 Love’s inflamèd shaft or brand
May kill as soon as Death’s cold hand;
Except Love’s fires the virtue have
To fight the frost out of the grave.
