Epitaph On A Free But Tame Redbreast, A Favourite Of Miss Sally Hurdis.
By William Cowper
These are not dewdrops, these are tears,
And tears by Sally shed
For absent Robin, who she fears,
With too much cause, is dead.
One morn he came not to her hand
As he was wont to come,
And, on her finger perchd, to stand
Picking his breakfast-crumb.
Alarmd, she calld him, and perplexd,
She sought him, but in vain
That day he came not , nor the next,
Nor ever came again.
She therefore raised him here a tomb,
Though where he fell, or how,
None knowsso secret was his doom,
Nor where he moulders now.
Had half a score of coxcombs died
In social Robins stead,
Poor Sallys tears had soon been dried,
Or haply never shed.
But Bob was neither rudely bold
Nor spiritlessly tame;
Nor was, like theirs, his bosom cold,
But always in a flame.