The Labourer and the Nightingale

All through the warm summer night, a labourer lay awake and listened. High in the dark a nightingale was singing. The song rose and fell, rose and fell, and he wished it would never end.

The next night he set a trap, and soon he held the little brown bird in his hands. "Now I have caught you," he cried, "and you will sing to me for always."

"We nightingales never sing in a cage," said the bird.

"Then I will eat you," said the labourer. "I have always heard that nightingale on toast is a tasty treat."

"No, do not kill me," said the nightingale. "Let me go, and I will tell you three things worth far more than my poor little body."

The labourer opened his hands. Up flew the bird to a branch, just out of reach. "Here is the first," he said. "Never believe a prisoner's promise. Here is the second. Keep what you have. And here is the third. Do not cry over what is gone for good." Then the little brown bird flew away, and his song went with him.