190 OUE NATIVE SONGSTERS. 



" No burial this pretty pair 

 Of any man receives ; 

 Till robin redbreast, painfully, 

 Did cover them with leaves." 



Nor was the idea of the redbreast's care in this 

 matter peculiar to this poem. We find it alhided 

 to in several ohl writers. Thus, John Webster, 

 who wrote in 1G30 — 1638, says : — 



•' Call for the robin redbreast, and the wren, 

 Since o'er shady groves they hover, 

 And with leaves and flowers do cover 

 The friendless bodies of unburied men." 



Michael Drayton too alludes to it : — 



" Covering with moss the dead's unclosed eye, 

 The little redbreast teacheth charitie." 



Then we have Herrick, in his Hesperides, 

 telling how Amarillis, soothed by the low mur- 

 murings of a spring, fell asleep : — 



" And thus f^leeping, thither flew 

 A robin redbreast; who, at view, 

 Not seeing her at all to stir, 

 Brought leaves and moss to cover her." 



Nor has the greatest of all England's poets 

 omitted the allusion to a tradition so poetic. In 

 " Cymbeline," we have Shakespere saying, — 



