Read "The Bustard" by Tomás de Iriarte online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
The sluggish Bustard, in her foolish pate, / Vexed with her young ones' awkward flight, / Purposed to raise a brood more light, / Even though 't were illegitimate.
For this end many an egg she stole / From Partridge, Pigeon and the Kite, / And sundry birds of easy flight; / And in her nest mixed up the whole.
Long while and patiently she sat upon them; / Though some proved addled, yet, in time, the rest / With a fine brood of nurslings filled the nest; / And many a kind, of course, was found among them.
A host of birds collects, at her request, / To admire her progeny, so rare and new; / But each away with his own offspring flew, / And left poor Bustard with an empty nest.
Ye, who the ideas of other men brood over, -- / Bring out your fledglings. Let us see them fly!
Then, "This, and this is mine," resounds the cry / How much belongs to you, we'll soon discover.