Read "The Bee and the Cuckoo" by Tomás de Iriarte online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
"Stop, Cuckoo," said the Bee; / "With my labor interferes / That unpleasant voice of thine, / Always ringing in my ears.
There is no bird, in song, / So monotonous as thou.
It is cuckoo all day long, / And nothing but cuckoo!"
"Wearies you, my monotone?"
The Cuckoo straight rejoined; / "So, too, one shape alone, / In thy waxen cells, I find.
If, in the self-same way, / You make a hundred as each one; / If I nothing new can say, / Nothing new by you is done."
This was the Bee's reply: / "A work of usefulness / May lack variety, / And be valued none the less.
But in a work designed / To gratify the taste, / If we no invention find, / Aught else is tedious waste. "