Say, where is the nightingale I gave you in the spring?
Sweetly in unclouded nights the captive used to sing;
Oh! It had the wildest notes that ever yet were heard;
Tell me not you've changed it for yon green and scarlet bird!
Better is a gentle voice than a painted cheek;
I will have the wood notes wild, you the golden beak;
Take discordant beauty hence, I'm for plainer sweets,
I will have the nightingale's, you the paroquet's.
~ Текст приведён по изданию «Songs, Ballads and Other Poems by the Late Thomas Haynes Bayly», Vol. II, London, 1844.