—stripping, as they were supposed to do, the foliage from the trees on which to write their elegies, and so leaving the uncovered trunks as monumental shafts.
According to tradition, it was the robin who originated the first conception of decorating the graves of martyrs.
"The robin-redbreast oft at evening hours
Shall kindly lend his aid,
With hoary moss and gathered flowers
To deck the grave where thou art laid."
And again from one of the old poets, who was naturally anxious that his own last rites should be proper as well as pathetic:
"And while the wood nymphs my old corpse inter,
Sing thou my dirge, sweet-warbling chorister;
My epitaph in foliage next write this:
'Here, here, the tomb of Robert Herrick is.'"
And so it came to pass, by the patronage of the poets, that in the early centuries this little bird came to be protected by an affectionate, unwritten law. To molest a redbreast was to bring the swift vengeance of lightning on the house. The ancient boy knew better, if he cherished his personal safety, than to steal a young bird for the purpose of captivity, for
"A robin in a cage
Sets all heaven in a rage."
The "sobbing, sobbing of pretty, pretty robin" would surely call down upon the head of the luckless thief the dire displeasure of the deities; as runs the rhyme, meant in all reverence (as it should also be quoted);
"The robin and the wren
Are God Almighty's cock and hen.
Him that harries their nest
Never shall his soul have rest."