_Birds' Care for the Dead._--It is not uncommon to find in poets of all
ages some allusion to the pious care of particular birds for the bodies
of the dead. Is there any truth in the idea? for certainly the old
ballad of "The Children in the Wood" has made many a kind friend for the
Robin Redbreast by the affecting lines:
"No burial this pretty pair
Of any man receives,
Till Robin Redbreast piously
Did cover them with leaves."
Herrick also alludes to the same tradition in his verses "upon Mrs.
Elizabeth Wheeler, under the name of Amarillis." (_Works_, vol i. pp.
62-3.: Edin. 1823)
"Sweet Amarillis, by a spring's
Soft and soule-melting murmurings,
Slept; and thus sleeping, thither flew,
A Robin Redbreast; who at view,
Not seeing her at all to stir,
Brought leaves and moss to cover her;
But while he, perking, there did prie
About the arch of either eye,
The lid began to let out day,
At which poor Robin flew away;
And seeing her not dead, but all disleav'd,
He chirpt for joy, to see himself disceav'd."
In the earlier editions of Gray's _Elegy_, before the Epitaph, the
following exquisite lines were inserted:
"There scatter'd oft, the earliest of the year,
By hands unseen, are showers of violets found:
The Redbreast loves to build and warble there,
And little footsteps lightly print the ground."
And about the same time Collin's "Dirge in Cymbeline" had adorned the
"fair Fidele's grassy tomb" with the same honour:
"The Redbreast oft, at evening hours,
Shall kindly lend his little aid,
With hoary moss, and gather'd flowers,
To deck the ground where thou art laid."