Love and Death once ceased their strife <br />At the Tavern of Man's Life. <br />Called for wine, and threw -- alas! -- <br />Each his quiver on the grass. <br />When the bout was o'er they found <br />Mingled arrows strewed the ground. <br />Hastily they gathered then <br />Each the loves and lives of men. <br />Ah, the fateful dawn deceived! <br />Mingled arrows each one sheaved; <br />Death's dread armoury was stored <br />With the shafts he most abhorred; <br />Love's light quiver groaned beneath <br />Venom-headed darts of Death. <br /> <br />Thus it was they wrought our woe <br />At the Tavern long ago. <br />Tell me, do our masters know, <br />Loosing blindly as they fly, <br />Old men love while young men die?<br /><br />Rudyard Kipling<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-explanation/
