Explore "The Owl and the Toad" by Tomás de Iriarte on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
A red Owl was sitting quietly / Up in his hole, in a hollow tree, / Where he chanced to catch the curious eye / Of a great Toad that was hopping by.
"Holloa, up there, Sir Solitary! " -- / Spoke out the Toad, with accent merry, -- / "Poke out your head, and let us see, / Handsome or ugly, whether you be."
"I have never set up for an elegant beau," -- / Answered the Owl to the Toad below.
"To attempt by daylight to make a great show, / Will hardly do for me -- well I know.
"And for you, my good sir, -- displaying your grace / So jauntily now, in the day's broad face, -- / Don't you think it would far better be, / If you hid in another hole, like me?"
Alas! how few of us authors live / By the good advice the Owl doth give!
All the nonsense we write, get printed we must; / Although, to the world, it be dry as the dust.
The lesson, my comrades, is good -- let us learn it / It often would be much better to burn it.
But conspicuous toads we rather would be, / Than modest owls in our own hollow tree.