Boothby: The Boy and the Goldfinch

"Let me, my pretty Bird, but know
Why from your gilded cage you go?"
A Stripling to his Goldfinch said
Who to a neighb'ring grove had fled:
"To give you all that you could ask.
Has ever been my pleasing task."
"'Tis true," replies the Bird, "less good
Will be my lodging and my food;
But nothing will my wings confine.
And native liberty be mine.''

Source: Boothby - Aesop 2.50

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(image source)

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(not in Mille - not in Perry)