This past spring I was visited by a disgruntled baby robin. Like a lot of symbols, robins can be either signs of good luck and new beginnings, or a harbinger of death.

Ballad by Thomas Millington in Norwich 1595, the “Babes in the Wood” tale has been reworked into many forms:

Thus wandered these poor innocents,
Till death did end their grief;
In one another's arms they died,
As wanting due relief;
No burial this pretty pair
Of any man receives,
Till Robin Redbreast piously
Did cover them with leaves.

A 1765 poem by Thomas Percy (1729-1811).