| Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). A Victorian Anthology, 1837–1895. 1895. |
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| The Vacant Cage |
| | | Charles Tennyson Turner (1808–79) |
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| OUR little bird in his full day of health | |
| With his gold-coated beauty made us glad, | |
| And when disease approach’d with cruel stealth, | |
| A sadder interest our smiles forbad. | |
| How oft we watch’d him, when the night hours came, | 5 |
| His poor head buried near his bursting heart, | |
| Which beat within a puff’d and troubled frame; | |
| But he has gone at last, and play’d his part: | |
| The seed-glass, slighted by his sickening taste, | |
| The little moulted feathers, saffron-tipp’d, | 10 |
| The fountain, where his fever’d bill was dipp’d, | |
| The perches, which his failing feet embraced, | |
| All these remain—not even his bath remov’d— | |
| But where ’s the spray and flutter that we lov’d? | |
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