ROBIN.
The English ballad of the "Babes in the Wood" immortalized his memory in poetical sentiment:
"Their little corpse the robin-redbreast found,
And strewed with pious bills the leaves around."
Earlier than the pathetic career of these Babes, homage was paid to the robins,
"Who with leaves and flowers do cover
The friendless bodies of unburied men."
This superstition of the robin's art in caring for the dead runs through many of the old poets, Drayton, Grahame, Hood, Herrick, and others. Strict justice in the matter would have divided the praise of him with the charitable night winds, for it was they more than he who "covered friendless bodies." The sylvan shades of the Old World being then more comprehensive than now, unburied men, from any cause, found their last resting-place in the lap of the forest, sleeping wherever they fell, since no laws of "decent burial" governed the wilds. The night winds, true to their instincts then as now, swirled the fallen leaves about any object in their way, in the fashion of a burial shroud. As a matter of course, credit was given to the robin, whose voracious appetite always led him to plunder litter of any sort in search of food. Up bright and early, as is still his habit (since at this hour he is able to waylay the belated night insect), the robin was spied bestirring the forest leaves, and unbeknown to himself was sainted for all time.
And his duties were not confined to those of sexton alone, for, according to good witnesses, he became both sculptor and clergyman—
"For robin-redbreasts when I die
Make both my monument and elegy,"