C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

Dirge from ‘Vittoria Corombona’

By John Webster (c. 1580–1634)

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.

Call unto his funeral dole

The ant, the field-mouse, and the mole,

To rear him hillocks that shall keep him warm,

And (when gay tombs are robbed) sustain no harm;

But keep the wolf far thence, that’s foe to men,

For with his nails he’ll dig them up again.

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