 | William Shakespeare - Britons - 1881 - 256 pages
...directly borrowed from this scene : * Call for the robin-redbreast and the wren, Since o'er shady grove 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 raise him hillocks that shall... | |
 | Jehiel Keeler Hoyt, Anna Lydia Ward - Quotations - 1882 - 926 pages
...trusted man His annual visit i. THOMSON — The Seasons. Winter. Line 246. Call for the robin-red-breast and the wren. Since o'er shady groves they hover,...flowers do cover The friendless bodies of unburied men. j. JOHN WEBSTER— The White Devil; or. Villoría Coruiubona. A Dirge. Each morning, when my waking... | |
 | English periodicals - 1882 - 876 pages
...extraordinary how often in old ballads the idea of redbreasts covering over the bodies of dead men recurs : — Call for the robin redbreast and the wren, Since o'er...shady groves they hover, And with leaves and flowers cover The friendless bodies of unmarried men. ' It illustrates (line 2) the apparent want of sympathy... | |
 | English periodicals - 1923 - 1004 pages
...him — a child of Nature — a bird in the bush was worth two in the hand. Then there is Webster's Call for the robin redbreast and the wren, Since o'er...flowers do cover The friendless bodies of unburied men. The natural history is fantastic enough, but the lines keep fresh the old legend which must have its... | |
 | Owen Wister - Fiction - 1972 - 276 pages
...change or two I wrote them as deep as I could with my pencil upon a small board that he smoothed for me. "Call for the robin redbreast and the wren, Since o'er shady groves they hover, And with flowers and leaves do cover The friendless bodies of unburied men. Call to this funeral dole The ant,... | |
 | George Smith, William Makepeace Thackeray - Electronic journals - 1874 - 818 pages
...Here, for instance, are ten quaint lines worthy almost of Shakspeare : — Call for the robin-redbreast and the wren, Since o'er shady groves they hover,...And with leaves and flowers do cover The friendless bodiei of nnburicd men. Call unto his funcrnl dole The ant, the field-mouse, and the mole, To rear... | |
 | George Steiner - Drama - 1996 - 340 pages
...given in pasture to birds of prey. But the famous dirge in Webster's The White Devil instructs us to Call for the robin redbreast, and the wren, Since...flowers do cover The friendless bodies of unburied men. Indeed, in Webster's invocation — and he was a master of the ceremonies of death — the actual animals... | |
 | Elizabeth Atwood Lawrence - Animal sacrifice - 1997 - 262 pages
...covers the bodies of two young children with leaves is expressed in John Webster's familiar lines: Call for the robin redbreast and the wren, Since o'er shady groves they hover, And with leaves and flow'rs do cover The friendless bodies of unburied men. (Hazlitt 1905, 2: 520) 41 V Christmas card... | |
 | Carolyn V. Platt - Nature - 1998 - 296 pages
...graveyard and battlefield. John Webster's eerie lines from The White Devil can raise a shiver even today: Call for the robin redbreast and the wren, Since o'er...flowers do cover The friendless bodies of unburied men. But keep the wolf far thence that's foe to men, For with his nails he'll dig them up again. If the... | |
 | Christine Wilkie-Stibbs - Literary Criticism - 2002 - 232 pages
...Subversions, l67. 79. The extended quotation reads, "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 ofunburied men, /For with his nails he'll dig them up again. They would not bury him because he died... | |
| |
Call for the robin-red-breast 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... 
