So the Birds of Paradise were kings and "prima donnas" amongst the birds of earth, and they were happy--for a time. They were not quite so happy after a little while, for they got tired of hearing the birds praise them, and, wherever they looked, they saw nothing to give them pleasure. The earth, indeed, was beautiful, but they remembered Paradise, and that made it seem ugly. There was nothing for them to see that was worth the seeing, or to hear that was worth the listening to, except their own beauty and their own song. But that reminded them of Paradise, and they could not bear to be reminded of it now that they had lost it for ever. In fact they were miserable, and it was not long before they were all fluttering outside the gates of Paradise, and begging the Phenix to let them in. But the Phenix said, "No, I cannot. I warned you that the gates of Paradise could only be passed twice, once in and once out, and then no more. I tried to keep you from going, but you chose to go, and now you must stay outside. You can never enter Paradise again." "If we cannot enter it," said the poor Birds of Paradise, "let us at least forget it. Take away our beautiful voices, so that, when we sing, we shall not think of all the joys we have lost. Let our song be no more than the lark's or the nightingale's, or make us only able to twitter, and not sing at all. Then we can listen to the lark and the nightingale, and perhaps, in time, we may grow to admire them. As it is, we must either sing or be silent. We do not like to sit silent, and when we sing we think only of Paradise." "Yes," said the Phenix, "I will take your voice, your beautiful voice of song." So he took it, and that is why the Birds of Paradise never sing at all now, not even as the lark and the nightingale sing.