Read "The Nightingale and the Sparrow" by Tomás de Iriarte online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
A Nightingale her voice one day was tuning / In notes to match an organ's sonorous swell; / When by her cage a chattering Sparrow roaming / Stopped -- his surprise at her attempt to tell.
"I marvel much, that such strange pains you take; / That you, who sing so sweetly and so well, / Your imitators, thus, your models make; / For sure, the notes the organ's pipes that swell, / It owes to imitation of your song."
"Nevertheless," replies the Nightingale, -- / "Though it had learned of me, I would not fail / From it, in turn, instruction to derive.
And you will see the good results ere long.
To imitate my native bursts it sought; / I wish my untutored strains to modify / By the deep rules of science it has taught.
And thus, good sir, you see, that by and by, / My natural talent will by education thrive."
Has the caprice some learned fancy crossed, / That hours to study given are labor lost?
Who wisest is, will ever study most.