The Ant; The Pheas‑ant

The ant is known by his ant‑ennae,
Where‑as the pheas‑ant hasn’t any,
And that is why he wears instead,
A small red cap upon his head:
Without his Fez, indeed the pheasant,
Would be quite bald and quite un‑pleasant.

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]

Structure read from the source's markup; the words have not been compared against a page scan. Last checked 2026-08-20.

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–#L6.

Cite this poem

Robert Williams Wood (1868–1955). “The Ant; The Pheas‑ant.” First published in How to Tell the Birds from the Flowers and Other Woodcuts (1917). Text: Poem Index, https://poemindex.org/robert-williams-wood/the-ant-the-pheas-ant/. Append #L14 to cite line 14, or #L4-L9 for lines 4–9.

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