When Bunny’s young master awoke up from sleep,

To look at the creatures young master did creep,

And saw that this black one lay all of a heap.

“O Bunny, what ails you? What does it import

That you lean on one side, with your breath coming short?

For I never before saw a thing of the sort!”

They took him so gently up out of his hutch,

They made him a sick-bed, they loved him so much;

They wrapped him up warm; they said, Poor thing, and such;

But all to no purpose. Black Bunny he died,

And rolled over limp on his little black side;

The grown-up spectators looked awkward and sighed.

While, as for those others in that congregation,

You heard voices lifted in sore lamentation;

But three-year-old Baby desired explanation:

At least, so it seemed. Then they buried their dead

In a nice quiet place, with a flag at his head;

“Poor Bunny!”—in large print—was what the flag said.

Now, as they were shovelling the earth in the hole,

Little Baby burst out, “I don’t like it!”—poor soul!

And bitterly wept. So the dead had his dole.

That evening, as Babe she was cuddling to bed,

“The Bunny will come back again,” Baby said,

“And be a white bunny, and never be dead!”