Webster. Funeral Dirge for Marcello from "The White Devil" (c.1612)

Excerpt from

The White Devil

By John Webster

[Funeral Dirge for Marcello]

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 raise 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.

Source:
English Literature: An Illustrated Record. Vol II, part II.
Richard Garnett and Edmund Gosse, Eds.
New York: The MacMillan Company, 1904. 335.