The Ape; The Grape

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

The Apes, from whom we are descended,
Hang ape‑x down from trees suspended,
And since we find them in the trees,
We term them arbor‑ig‑i‑nes.
This quite explains the monkey‑shines
Cut up by those who pluck from vines
The Grape, and then subject its juices,
To Bacchanalian abuses.

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–#L8.

Cite this poem

Robert Williams Wood (1868–1955). “The Ape; The Grape.” 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-ape-the-grape/. Append #L14 to cite line 14, or #L4-L9 for lines 4–9.

More by Robert Williams Wood