The Happy Prince by Oscar Wilde

A very short story for children, although heartbreaking in every sense. 
When he was alive the Prince was indeed happy because he never left the castle and everything was  joyful around him; in a town the mayor has a precious and beautiful statue of him put on a tall column, with two sapphire as eyes, a ruby and gold all over. 
A swallow flies over the city; his flock has gone to Egypt already but he stayed behind. He stops to rest at the statue’s feet, and is surprised when tears fall on him. The statue of the prince tells him that in life he always played and danced and knew nothing of the world outside but now from up there he can see the ugliness of his city, the misery of the people, and cries. He begs the swallow to stay with him a few nights, and although knowing that he should join his flock as soon as possible, the kind bird stays to do what he asks: it brings the ruby to a poor seamstress with an ill child, a sapphire to a young playwriter who can’t finish his work because of the cold and the hunger, and the other sapphire to a little match seller who’s crying and will be beaten if she arrives home without any money; 
after this, the prince tells the swallow to go to Egypt but the kind little thing can’t leave him now that he can’t see anymore. The swallow says he’ll stay with him always, and tells him stories, and then tells him everything that he can see flying over the city: the usual of course, the rich being rich and the poor starving, and the prince begged him to give them all the gold covering him, lear after leaf;
the snow and the frost came and the swallow endured it as long as he could but at least flew over the prince shoulder to kiss him and bid him goodbye, and as the swallow fell dead at his feet the prince’s leaden heart had “snapped right in two”.
When the mayor saw the statue all grey and gloomy he took it down and melt it; since the heart wouldn’t melt, it was thrown away with the body of the dead bird.
God said to an angel : “bring me the two most precious things in the city” and the angel brought him the swallow and the heart, and both will now ‘live’ in God’s gardens..
I always cry when the heart breaks... and all the way to the end...