Talk:European robin

This article relates to quotation about the bird known as the Robin. Wordsworth's 'Poor Robin' relates to the plant Geranium robertianum, known at the time as Poor Robin. He's not referring to the bird. Should this quotation therefore be removed? —This unsigned comment is by Mothew (talk • contribs) .

I have moved the quote to Flowers. It was only here because Hoyt's had included it in there quotes on Robins. Cheers! BD2412 T 13:40, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

Surplus

• Marina is a beautiful virgin who has been captured by a caitiff wretch, named Limos, who has imprisoned her in the Cave of Famine, where he lives. Here she is likely to starve, when what happened you shall hear:
  A littie robin redbreast one clear morn
  Sate sweetly singing on a well-leaved thorn;
  Whereat Marina rose, and did admire
  He durst approach from whence all else retire;
  And pitying the sweet bird, what in her lay
  She fully strove to fright him thence away.
  “Poor harmless wretch,” quoth she, “go seek some spring,
  And to her sweet fall with thy fellows sing.
  Fly to the well-replenish’d groves and there
  Do entertain each swain’s harmonious care;
  Traverse the winding branches; chant so free
  That every lover fall in love with thee.
  * * * * *
  Do this, thou loving bird, and haste away
  Into the woods ; but if-so be thou stay
  To do a deed of charity on me
  When my pure soul shall leave mortality,
  By cov’ring this poor body with a sheet
  Of green leaves, gathered from a valley sweet.
  It is in vain; these harmless limbs must have
  Than in the caitiff’s womb no other grave.
  Hence then, sweet robin, lest in staying long
  At once thou chance forego both life and song.”
  With this she hush’d him thence, he sung no more,
  But ’fraid the second time, flew toward the shore.
  Within as short time as the swiftest swain
  Can to our May-pole run and come again,
  The little redbreast to the prickled thorn
  Returned, and sung there as he had beforn.
  And fair Marina to the loop-hole went,
  Pitying the pretty bird, whose punishment
  Limos would not defer if he were spied.
  No sooner had the bird the maiden eyed,
  But leaping on the rock, down from a bough
  He takes a cherry up, which he but now
  Had thither brought, and in that place had laid
  Till to the cleft his song had drawn the maid,
  And flying with the small stem in his bill,
  (A choicer fruit than hangs on Bacchus’ hill)
  In fair Marina’s bosom took his rest,
  A heavenly seat fit for so sweet a guest.
  * * * * *
  Here left the bird the cherry, and anon
  Forsook her bosom and for more is gone,
  Making such speedy flights into the thick
  That she admir’d he went and came so quick.
  Then, lest his many cherries should distaste,
  Some other fruit he brings than he brought last.
  Sometime of strawberries a little stem,
  Oft changing colors as he gather’d them;
  Some green, some white, some red on them infus’d,
  These lov’d, those fear’d, they blush’d to be so used.
  The peascod green, oft with no little toil
  He’d seek for in the fattest fertil’st soil,
  And rend it from the stalk to bring it to her,
  And in her bosom for acceptance woo her.
  No berry in the grove or forest grew,
  That fit for nourishment the kind bird knew,
  Nor any powerful herb in open field,
  To serve her brood the teeming earth did yield,
  But with his utmost industry he sought it,
  And to the cave for chaste Marina brought it.
  * * * * *
  But the charitable little bird was not content to supply the captive maiden with fruits; he exerted his ingenuity to find her something more nutritious. As she gazed out of her cell window on the stretch of sea-beach and rocks which the retreating tide had left uncovered:
              she spies
  A busy bird that to and fro still flies
  Till pitching where a hateful oyster lay,
  Opening his close jaws—closer none than they,
  Unless the griping fist, or cherry lips
  Of happy lovers in their melting sips.
  Since the decreasing waves had left him there
  He gapes for thirst, yet meets with nought but air,
  And that so hot, ere the returning tide,
  He in his shell is likely to be fried;
  The wary bird a pretty pebble takes
  And claps it ’twixt the two pearl hiding flakes
  Of the broad yawning oyster, and she then
  Securely picks the fish out, as some men
  A trick of policy thrust, tween two friends,
  Sever their powers, and his intention ends.
  The bird thus getting that for which she strove
  Brought it to her, to whom the queen of love
  Served as a foil, and Cupid could no other,
  But fly to her mistaken for his mother.
  Marina from the kind bird took the meat,
  And, looking down, she saw a number great
  Of birds, each one a pebble in his bill,
  Would do the like, but that they wanted skill.
  * * * * *
  Time will not allow me to pursue further the adventures of the fair Marina, whose life was saved by the watchful care of the robin redbreast, much to the astonishment of her captor, whose delight it was to starve his prisoners to death in the Cave of Famine.
  • William Browne, Britannia’s Pastorals (1625)