strength to
fly up to the Prince's shoulder once more. "Good-bye, dear Prince!"
he murmured, "will you let me kiss your hand?"

"I am glad that you are going to Egypt at last, little Swallow," said
the Prince, "you have stayed too long here; but you must kiss me on the
lips, for I love you."

"It is not to Egypt that I am going," said the Swallow. "I am going to
the House of Death. Death is the brother of Sleep, is he not?"

And he kissed the Happy Prince on the lips, and fell down dead at his
feet.

At that moment a curious crack sounded inside the statue, as if
something had broken. The fact is that the leaden heart had snapped
right in two. It certainly was a dreadfully hard frost.

Early the next morning the Mayor was walking in the square below in
company with the Town Councillors. As they passed the column he looked
up at the statue: "Dear me! how shabby the Happy Prince looks!" he said.

"How shabby, indeed!" cried the Town Councillors, who always agreed with
the Mayor; and they went up to look at it.

"The ruby has fallen out of his sword, his eyes are gone, and he is
golden no longer," said the Mayor; "in fact, he is little better than a
beggar!"

"Little better than a beggar," said the Town Councillors.

"And here is actually a dead bird at his feet!" continued the Mayor. "We
must really issue a proclamation that birds are not to be allowed to die
here." And the Town Clerk made a note of the suggestion.

So they pulled down the statue of the Happy Prince. "As he is no longer
beautiful he is no longer useful," said the Art Professor at the
University.

Then they melted the statue in a furnace, and the Mayor held a meeting
of the Corporation to decide what was to be done with the metal. "We
must have another statue, of course," he said, "and it shall be a statue
of myself."

"Of myself," said each of the Town Councillors, and they quarrelled.
When I last heard of them they were quarrelling still.

"What a strange thing!" said the overseer of the workmen at the foundry.
"This broken lead heart will not melt in the furnace. We must throw it
away." So they threw it on a dust-heap where the dead Swallow was also
lying.

"Bring me the two most precious things in the city," said God to one of
His Angels; and the Angel brought Him the leaden heart and the dead
bird.

"You have rightly chosen," said God, "for in my garden of Paradise this
little bird shall sing for evermore, and in my city of gold t