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The creature, with its tiresome trill.

May thank its stars that I disdain

To open my melodious bill,

And pour an overpowering strain!

"For if, as poets truly tell.

My very death-notes are divine.

My voice, of course, when I am well,

Is still more exquisitely fine.

And I could readily excel

That simple song by one of mine."

"I grant thy fame in former years,"

The Linnet answered, "but as thou

Art never heard by modern ears.

Thy song is deemed a fiction now.

And, like the music of the spheres,

A tale which moderns disallow.

"But give me, sweet one, I beseech,

A sample of that olden lay."

The Swan, too flattered by that speech.

To answer with a churlish nay.

Began to sing—but gave a screech;

The Linnet laughed and flew away.

Thus many a coxcomb with a name

For talents which he ne'er possessed,