Ye Graces, and ye Cupids, mourn,
And all that's graceful, woman born,
My sweet one's sparrow dead!
Smitten by death's fatal arrow
Lies my darling's darling sparrow!
As the eyes in her sweet head
She did love him, and he knew her
As my fair one knows her mother;
He was sweet as honey to her,
In her lap for ever sitting,
Hither thither round her flitting,
To his mistress and no other
He address'd his twittering tale.
Now adown death's darksome vale
He is gone to seek a bourn
Whence they tell us none return.
Plague upon you, dark and narrow
Shades of Orcus, without pity
Swallowing every thing that's pretty--
As ye took the pretty sparrow.
Wo's the day that you lie dead!
Little wretch, 'tis all your doing
That my fair one's eyes are red,
Swoln and red with tearful rueing.
AQUILIUS.--It would be childish to blame the poor bird for the crime of
dying, as if he had died out of spite; when, if the truth could be told,
perhaps the cat killed him. (At this moment, Gratian's favourite cat
rubbed herself against his legs, first her face and head, and then her
back, and looked up to him, as if begging him to plead for her race; and
he did so, and spoke kindly to her, and said, pussey would not kill any
bird though he should trust her in the aviary; and she, as if she knew
what he said, walked off to it, and rubbed her face against the wires,
and returned to us again.) Well, I continued, I don't see why the bird
should be called wretch fer that; and _factum male_ means to express
misfortune, not fault. So let the _malefactum_ be the Curate's, and
treat him accordingly.
GRATIAN.--Come, let us see your bird. Perhaps it may be necessary to
kill two with one stone. But I forget--_the_ bird is dead already.