Cross Bill; Sweet William

Robert Williams Wood (1868–1955) · How to Tell the Birds from the Flowers and Other Woodcuts · 1917

Nobody but an imbecile
Mistakes Sweet William for Cross Bill:
And even I can scarcely claim,
The skill to make them look the same.
Some other shrubs and vines and trees,
Express emotion much like these,
You’ve seen the mad‑wort plant I guess,
And weeping willows and sigh‑press,
The passion‑flower, at its climax,
The glad‑iolus and the smile‑ax.

Where this text comes from

First published in How to Tell the Birds from the Flowers and Other Woodcuts (1917). First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established. [1]

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Taken from Standard Ebooks, standardebooks/robert-williams-wood_how-to-tell-the-birds-from-the-flowers-and-other-woodcuts, how-to-tell-the-birds-from-the-flowers.xhtml. Rights: public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931).

Earlier sources (3)

This poem as JSON or plain text. Line anchors #L1–#L10.

Cite this poem

Robert Williams Wood (1868–1955). “Cross Bill; Sweet William.” First published in How to Tell the Birds from the Flowers and Other Woodcuts (1917). Text: Poem Index, https://poemindex.org/robert-williams-wood/cross-bill-sweet-william/. Append #L14 to cite line 14, or #L4-L9 for lines 4–9.

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