"Cupid & Death" (by Tony Wakeford)

Though little be the God of love
Yet his arrows mighty are,
And his victories above
What the valiant reach by war;
Nor are his limits with the sky;
Over the Milky Way he will fly,
And sometimes wound a deity.

Apollo once the Python slew,
But a keener arrow flew
From Daphne's eye and made a wound
For which the God no balsom found.
A smile of Venus, that did more
On Mars than armies could before:
Thus Love can fiery spirits tame,
And, when he pleases, cold rocks inflame.

Victorious men of earth, no more
Proclaim how wide your Empires are;
Though you bind in every shore
And your triumphs reach
As far as night or day,
Yet you proud monarchs must obey,
And mingle with forgotten ashes when
Death casts you to
The crowd of common men.

Devouring famine plague and war
Each able to undo mankind
Death's servile emissaries are:
Nor to these alone confined
He has at will more
Quaint and subtle ways to kill
A smile or kiss, as he will use the art,
Shall have the burning skill to break a heart.

Stay Cupid, where art thou flying?
Pity the pale lovers dying
They that honored thee before
Will honor thee no more [...]

Unkind Cupid leave thy killing
These are all thy mother's doves;
O do not wound such noble loves,
And make them bleed, that should be billing

And will it, Death, advance thy name,
Upon cold rocks to waste a flame,
Or by mistake seem to throw
Bright torches into pits of snow?

Thy rage is lost, thy old killing frost.
With thy arrows you may try
To make the young or aged bleed,
But indeed not compel one heart to die.

O Love! O Death be it your fate
Before you both repent too late,
To meet and try upon yourselves
Your sad artillery

So Death may make Love kind again,
Or cruel Death by Love by slain.