Read "The Dogs and the Ragman" by Tomás de Iriarte online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Denounced though I may be, / By coward critics, that I here expose -- / Because I dare their meanness to disclose; / Their portrait they shall see / In yet another fable ere I close.
Beating an old dust pan, / A Ragman stood, when, barking furiously / As Cerberus, two Dogs, eying him curiously, / With vagabondish man, / As is their wont -- howled savagely.
To them a tall Greyhound / Said, "Let the wretch alone, -- for he is one / Who from dead dogs will strip the reeking skin / To sell for bread. No honor can you win / On him -- for, I'll be bound, / From living dogs the conscious rogue will run. "