A Land Dirge
John Webster · 1612
Public domain
From The Golden Treasury, selected by Francis Turner Palgrave. John Webster. The text is free of copyright in the United States. This copy is the poem, without the Project Gutenberg header.
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 robb'd) sustain no harm;
But keep the wolf far thence, that's foe to men,
For with his nails he'll dig them up again.